All He Ever Wanted
by JessieBee185
Summary: All he ever wanted was to meet his real family. To break away from his abusive foster father and have a life with his real parents. Then when he meets the boy, Wyatt, he might just get that chance. But can it really have a happy ending?
1. The Boy Wyatt

Summary: All he ever wanted was to meet his real family. To breakaway from his abusive foster father and have a life with his real parents. And then when Chris meets the boy, Wyatt, he might just get that chance. But can it really have a happy ending?

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any of it's characters! If i did, then Wyatt and Chris would have came back from the future earlier in season 8 and vanquished Billie and Christy!

A/N Hey! This is a new story of mine that i decided to write because i was bursting to get it out! I know this type of storyline has been done before but i couldn't resist! Oh and also, this story deals with child abuse and it also has swearing in it so if you can't stand reading that stuff then don't read this story! Oh and another thing, Chris knows nothing about magic at the start of this story but don't worry, he'll find out about his magical heritage soon enough! Anyway, i hope you's like it! xx

* * *

Chris crept down the stairs as quietly as possible. He didn't want Rob to hear him. He stepped into the kitchen silently and quietly opened the stained cupboard door. He reached in and took a packet of crisps out of the plastic bag. He opened the packet and ate hungrily. His jaw ached with every chew, a result of the punch he'd received from his foster father Rob the night before. He looked around the messy kitchen. Plates of congealing food still lay on the table from a couple of nights ago. The sink was piled with dirty dishes, the fridge door and cupboards were greasy, the vino floor tiles were coming up. Basically it was a tip. The same with the rest of the house really. The whole house was a rubbish heap. He wondered why his social worker had even considered Rob when you could tell just from the house that life with him would be hard. 

Chris stopped eating when he heard the creak of a floorboard from upstairs. He stared up at the ceiling fearfully but no more noise was heard. He let out a sigh of relief.

He'd first came to stay with Rob when he was nine years old. He'd been with foster families and in and out of Care homes his whole life. Well almost. He knew that he'd had a real family once. But then when he was 11 months old he was found on the doorstep of a woman's house. The woman's name was Valerie Johnston. She just so happened to be a social worker and had looked into his case immediately. But she couldn't find out anything about him. All that was known was that his first name was Chris because it had been written on a piece of paper and pinned to the blanket he was wrapped in. Chris didn't even know what his name was short for; if it was short for Christian or Christopher. He didn't really care to be honest. He didn't have a real second name either. He was just called after whoever he was being fostered by and then that surname was kept until he was fostered by someone else.

So now his name was Chris Brown. He'd lived with Rob, short for Robert, for 5 years to the present day and it had been a living hell. Rob was a temperamental, bald drunk. And he usually took his anger out on Chris. Sometimes it just took Chris to say the wrong thing or give him the wrong look to set him off. Or sometimes it was nothing at all. It was like his brain had been wired up wrong and was a time bomb, ready to explode at the slightest nudge.

Chris heard Rob coughing upstairs as he put his crisp packet in the bin. He spitefully hoped that the man was choking to death but the coughing stopped and Chris sighed.

"Oh well." he muttered.

He walked back into the hall as quietly as before and picked up his school bag that was lying on the floor by the front door. He hated school with a passion but he knew that anywhere was better than staying home with Rob. Sometimes Rob would beat him so much that he'd have to stay off school until the bruising went down. A lot of the time Rob would forget not to hit him in the face and so he would go to school with black eyes and a bruised jaw. Rob normally tried to only hit him in places that were covered by his clothes but sometimes he got so angry that he just hit where he could reach, whether it was Chris's stomach or his face.

Chris walked out the front door and closed it quietly behind him. As he walked down the cracked path, he let his mind wander. It was the same thing that he thought about a lot. About what his real family were like. He imagined two loving parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, maybe even a brother or a sister. He thought about how great it would be to have an older brother to protect him, to have a dad to go to football matches with, a mom that would fuss over him and looked after him when he was sick. He'd thought about it so much, it was like a fairytale that he would use to get himself to sleep.

Two years back he'd had a dream that he still remembered. In the dream he was being cuddled by someone with soft skin and long, dark, brown hair. It was a woman and she was singing softly to him. It sounded like a lullaby. The woman held him in one arm and stroked his face and hair with her other hand. He remembered the softness and coolness of the hand on his forehead. And then the dream had ended. He was convinced that the woman in the dream had been his mother singing him to sleep when he was a baby. She sounded so kind and gentle. What frustrated him most about the dream, was that he had never been able to make out her face. All he knew of her was the soft skin and brown hair. It made him proud to think that he had inherited his brown hair from her. He wondered if he had her eyes too. Or maybe he had his dads eyes, he didn't know.

He turned into a different street. This street was his favourite. It was filled with old Victorian houses, most of them painted different colours. His favourite one though, was a magenta coloured one with stained glassed windows where the attic was. It had beautiful flowers and shrubs growing outside it with stone steps leading up to the front door. He tried to imagine what it would be like to live in that house but it just seemed so out of his world that he couldn't. All he knew was old flats and houses, with damp patches in the corners of the walls and weeds taking over the gardens.

He soon arrived at his high school. The place was swarming with teenagers talking and laughing with their friends and larking around. Chris stood up straight and walked through the hall, pushing past people that got in his way. This was how it normally was. He put on a mask of someone that didn't give a crap about anything and that wouldn't take any crap from anyone. Inside though, he was as vulnerable as a six year old kid. When he first started the high school, he'd got into lots of fights. People thought because he was small for his age that they could push him around. When he was younger he probably would have just kept his head down and took it but after Rob started abusing him, he changed. He would get pushed around back "home" and he didn't want it happening at school too. So he fought back. And usually got in lots of trouble for it. He now had made many enemies in the school. He didn't have any friends because most people where either scared of the people he fought with or they were scared of him. Which was quite funny really because he was smaller than most boys his age. It didn't really make sense that people would be scared of him.

Suddenly someone pushed him from the side and he went flying into the lockers. The attacker grabbed him by the scruff of his t-shirt with both hands and pinned him against the lockers. Chris recognised him as Marcus Louden. One of the main people he had problems with.

"Get off me!" Chris exclaimed angrily struggling against him.

"I heard about you and my Cassie last night, Brown!" Marcus hissed angrily.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Chris retorted.

"Don't lie to me you little shit! Brian told me how you were trying to hit on her in the car park!"

"I don't own a car, why would i be in the school car park! And did it ever cross your mind that Brian is trying to stir things up!"

"I think i'd believe my best friend over a little asshole like you!" Marcus growled furiously.

Chris could hear Brian and the rest of Marcus's cronies sniggering in the background. Suddenly a teacher turned the corner of the corridor and saw them.

"Hey you two! Cut it out!" he called walking swiftly over to them.

Marcus and Chris glared at each other and Marcus let him go.

"Come on." he said gruffly to his friends and they stalked off.

"Okay, do you want to tell what that was about?" Mr. Wood asked him as he walked up.

"No." Chris said firmly. He grabbed his bag and walked off down the corridor, glaring at anyone that looked at him.

Mr. Wood watched him go and sighed. He knew something wasn't right with Chris. He'd been trying so hard for the last couple of months to get Chris to open up but he was so distant. Suddenly the bell rang for first class and he quickly set off.

* * *

Chris knocked on the door of his History class. He was ten minutes late. 

"Come in." came the gravely voice of his teacher, Ms. Smith.

Chris opened the door and stepped inside.

"Ah, you finally decided to show up then Mr. Brown." she said.

"It's only been 10 minutes." said Chris snappily.

Ms. Smith shot him a murderous look but didn't pursue it.

"Sit down." she snapped.

Chris took flopped down into his seat and pulled his history books out of his bag, laying them on the desk. He hated it when teachers held back with him. The headmaster, Mr Quinn, had told them all about his experiences in foster care and told them to be gentle and patient with him. It was Ms. Smith that found it the hardest to be nice to him and in some ways he liked her for it. He hated the fake smiles and sugar coated tones of voices the other teachers used whenever he was in class. It was only Ms. Smith and Mr. Wood that (almost) treated him like every other pupil. Well them and his gym teacher, but that would be explained later.

Ms. Smith continued with the History lesson but Chris couldn't concentrate properly. His mind kept wandering as usual. Soon the lesson was finished and Chris was broken out of his daydream by the bell ringing. He got up and left the class.

At lunch break, Chris wandered aimlessly around the school grounds. He didn't have any money to buy lunch and Rob never bothered to buy proper food so he couldn't bring one with him. After lunch break he had PE. He didn't mind that, he liked PE. It was one of the only subjects that he was actually good at. Apart from Home Economics. He was quite good at cooking too. Soon the bell rang and he made his way to the gym hall.

* * *

Marcus was seriously pissing him off. They were playing soccer and Marcus had already kicked the ball high enough for it to hit him on the back of the head three times. He gritted his teeth and decided just to ignore it and continue the game. Soon the teacher told Marcus to swap places with Andrew and go in goals. Chris smiled inwardly. This was just the chance he needed for payback. He sprinted towards the player with the ball and managed to get it off him. He ran towards the goals, skilfully kicking the ball in front of him. He got within shooting distance of the goals and kicked the ball, hard. But he wasn't aiming to get the ball in the net. He was aiming it for Marcus. Right where it would hurt the most... 

Marcus cried out in pain as the ball connected with his lower regions and he fell to his knees. Chris smiled, almost bursting out laughing. He suddenly heard the gym teacher's whistle and he looked over to see him gesturing for him to come over. He looked pissed.

"Uh oh. I'm in trouble." Chris thought as he walked over.

Mr Kirkwood was writing something on his clipboard that he carried everywhere with him. Chris saw a flash of pink and his heart sank. It was a detention slip.

"_Another_ detention." Chris thought grudgingly.

"Here you go." said Mr Kirkwood handing him the detention slip. "It's for today after school."

"But i didn't do anything!"

"Don't try and lie to me saying that that shot wasn't deliberate!" Mr Kirkwood snapped.

"He started it with kicking the ball at my head!" Chris snapped back.

"Don't you dare talk back to me! Go get changed, you're not playing any more!" Mr Kirkwood said pointing towards the direction of the changing rooms.

"Fine." Chris said like he didn't care and walked off. He ignored Marcus's gloating smile as he walked past, suppressing the urge to punch him in the face.

Once he was in the changing room, he punched the wall instead. And then he swore and shook his hand as the pain seared through his knuckles. He hated Mr Kirkwood the most out of all the teachers. Now that he thought about it, he was sure Mr Kirkwood hated him too. He always took someone else's side of the story, even if he knew Chris was right. Today was no different. Chris quickly got changed and left for next class as soon as the bell went.

The last lesson went painfully slow (it was maths) but finally the bell rang for the end of the day. Chris dragged himself reluctantly to detention. He considered just skipping it but he knew he'd get in BIG trouble the next day. But staying for detention meant it would mean he wouldn't get out of school until 4:30 and Rob finished work at 5:00. He would be in trouble if he wasn't home when Rob got in. Putting the two options against each other, he decided that getting in trouble for not turning up for detention was much better than being beat into a bloody pulp for not being home. So he just left.

Once he was out the gates he turned in the direction of his house. He kept his eyes down as he walked, lost in his thoughts once again. Suddenly he walked straight into the back of someone and ended up dropping his school bag that he'd decided just to carry in his hand. The zipper opened and all of his school books spilled out onto the muddy grass.

"Shit." Chris muttered as he bent down to pick them up. He didn't bother to apologise or even look at the person he'd walked into.

"Hey watch where you're going kid." said the person.

Chris looked up and shot the boy a "fuck you" look. The boy in question, was much taller than him with sandy coloured hair and blue eyes. He looked at least two years older than him and looked like he wouldn't have much bother beating him up. Chris didn't really care though. He just wanted to get back to his house and hide away from Rob.

"I'm not a kid." he added to the look.

"Yea right. You're like what? Ten?" said the boy with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Try fourteen." Chris retorted dryly, still gathering the mud smeared books.

"Oh sorry, my bad. You're just kinda small for fourteen. No offence." the boy added. He bent down and helped Chris gather the books.

Chris bundled them back in his bag, zipped it up properly and stood up. He looked at the boy.

"Thanks." he said and made to walk past him.

The boy watched him walk away. He had this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he'd seen the boy before.

"Hey wait!" he called.

Chris turned around. "What?"

"What's your name?" he asked, trying to see if that would jog his memory.

"Chris Brown." Chris replied. "What's yours?"

"Wyatt Halliwell." Wyatt replied.

"Nice to meet you Wyatt." Chris said. He saluted with two fingers, smiled and walked away again. This time Wyatt let him go.

Where had he seen him before! He looked so familiar. When the boy had said his name he had felt a pang of sadness. Chris. His mom and dad had told him how his baby brother Christopher had been kidnapped when he was just 11 months old. They'd never seen him since. But for some reason, Wyatt had this feeling that he was still alive. He didn't know how he knew. It felt like they were connected somehow and when Wyatt had talked to the fourteen year old Chris Brown, he felt the connection strengthen. Wyatt shrugged it off. It was probably just a weird coincidence.

* * *

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	2. Behind Closed Doors

A/N Hey everyone! Another chapter for you all! This chapter looks more into Chris's past and is quite dark. One bit in particular is quite horrific. ANYway thanx to everyone that reviewed and i hope you's like this chapter! xx

* * *

Chris opened the door reluctantly and quietly. He'd seen Rob's black van parked at the side of the road.

_Why was he home so early?_

He stepped into the dark hallway. The light bulb had burst months ago and Rob had never bothered to fix it. He listened out for Rob but he couldn't hear anything. This made him nervous. He stepped into the grimy kitchen with the full intention to get something to eat since all he'd had to eat all day was the packet of crisps in the morning. He opened the fridge and looked inside. He wrinkled his nose at the contents. There was a mouldy strawberry, a bottle of beer, leftovers of a tv dinner that were beginning to go off and milk that had been left so long that Chris was convinced that it was starting to turn into cheese. He closed the fridge with a sigh and walked over to the cupboard to get a packet of crisps. Suddenly he heard a door upstairs bang and then heavy footsteps came clomping down the stairs. Chris froze in fear as he listened to them. He put the packet back and stood waiting by the cupboard as Rob walked in. They looked at each other for a moment and Chris took in Rob's current appearance. He was wearing black trackies, a baggy white t-shirt with beer stains on it and he was sweating. He was always sweating.

"What are _you_ looking at!" Rob snarled in his usual gruff voice.

He walked forwards and pushed Chris aside to get into the cupboard. Chris shook his head.

"Nothing." he mumbled.

Rob rustled in the bag that held the crisps.

"Why is there only three packets left!" He questioned angrily coming out the cupboard.

Chris shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know." he mumbled quietly.

He did know why. He'd ate three packets over two days. But he'd had to eat something or he'd have ended up starving to death. He'd already lost six pounds in the last week. The weight was dropping off of him.

"What do you mean you don't know! There were six packets there on Friday! I didn't eat any so it must have been you!" Rob exclaimed taking a threatening step towards Chris.

_God, why was he stressing so much over crisps?_

"I was hungry." Chris said simply.

"So you thought you'd eat all the food did you!"

"Well maybe if you actually bought proper food once in a while, i wouldn't have to eat the only stuff that was left!" Chris retorted.

Rob's face contorted in anger and Chris knew he'd crossed the mark. Rob raised his huge fist and punched Chris across the face. Even though he'd tried to brace himself for the impact, the punch still knocked him off his feet and he fell to the ground, hitting the back of his head off the floor. Blood spurted out of his nose and he covered it with his right hand. He screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the pain. Rob could pack one hell of a punch. But he didn't cry out. He knew that Rob would just hit him harder for being a wimp if he did.

"You ungrateful little bastard!" Rob shouted, kicking Chris hard in the stomach and winding him.

"I give you a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in and you still complain!" Rob continued, kicking him again, this time in the chest.

He knelt down, with Chris between his legs, so that he could get to him properly. He raised his fist over Chris's face again and brought it down. Chris screwed his eyes shut again and raised his hands in a vain attempt to protect his face. He waited for the impact but nothing happened. Hesitantly he opened his eyes. Rob's fist was inches from his face but it seemed to be frozen in place. Chris took his hands away so he could get a better look. Rob's face was frozen in a furious expression, not moving at all. Chris shakily waved his hand in front of Rob's eyes but he didn't even blink. Chris gulped nervously, each breath shaky. He shuffled out from between Rob and stood up, using the counter for support. He looked at the frozen Rob in bewilderment.

_What the hell!_

Chris snapped out of his confused state and took the chance to get out of the kitchen. He ran upstairs and into the bathroom. He was already beginning to get light headed with the blood loss from his nose bleed and he needed to clean it up. He grabbed a handful of toilet paper from the roll and held it to his nose, pinching it. He stood like that for a couple of minutes and then took the toilet paper away. The nose bleed had stopped and he walked over to the sink. Running the tap, he splashed his face and washed away the blood traces. He hesitantly checked the back of his head for any blood but there was none. It was just painful and he winced. He looked at himself in the cracked mirror above the sink. His face had drained itself of all it's colour and he still had a fearful look in his eyes. Purple bruising was forming across his jaw from the punch the night before.

Chris thought about what had just happened. Was that even possible? Was Rob just faking it?...No, Rob wouldn't have done that. He was in such an angry state that nothing would have made him stop until he'd let all that anger out. Then how did that happen? Rob was downstairs in the kitchen, as frozen as a stone statue! How was that even possible!

It wasn't the first time that something weird had happened to Chris. Through his whole life, weird things would happen during times when he was feeling intense emotions. Normally when he was scared. He remembered when he was little, around 4 or 5 years old, and he was getting chased by a group of boys. He remembered how scared he'd been and how he'd wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else. And then...he was. One minute he was running along the pavement, scared out of his wits and then the next he was in the garden of a house a couple of blocks away. He didn't know how it had happened but because he'd been so young at the time, Chris just figured his young mind had exaggerated it. Then another time when he was seven years old he was living with one of the worst sets of foster parents he'd had in the seven years he'd been alive. They hit him too. The woman, Grace Watson, used to scratch him with her long, red painted and made him have baths in ice cold water. She never let him eat with them with them and would give him the cold leftovers. She more mentally abused them than physically though. She'd tell him over and over again that he was worthless and that no-one would ever love him and after a while, he began to believe her. He'd even questioned the kindness and love of his parents that he'd dreamt up. If they'd loved him so much then why did they abandon him on a doorstep? But he'd broke out of that thinking when he'd been put back in a care home, and he went back to dreaming of parents that loved him more than anything in the world...

But it was a time before that that Chris remembered the most. Grace's husband, Jack Watson, had come home from work to find Chris's toys scattered about the living room. He had been so mad. He had picked Chris up by the front of the t-shirt, the collar cutting into his throat and choking him. Jack had shook him until he felt sick and the blood pounded in his ears. He'd been scared, really scared. And then Jack began choking. His tie was tightening around his throat for no reason and he dropped Chris. He'd had to cut the tie with a pair of scissors before he choked to death.

So weird stuff like Rob being frozen had happened before. But that didn't mean that it didn't make it any less freaky. Chris looked at his reflection and went deep into his own thoughts once again.

He wondered why he'd had so much bad luck with foster parents. Why was his social worker so incapable of finding non abusive foster parents that would love him and take care of him? Even when he was in the Care homes, he used to get picked on by the other kids because he was so small for his age. He guessed that was the start of him learning to take care of himself, not just when Rob started hitting him. But then again, maybe it was just him. Maybe there was something about him that made people just want to hurt him.

Chris was snapped out of his thoughts and he jumped as he heard Rob moving downstairs. He wasn't frozen any more! What could he do! Run? But run where! He'd have to go downstairs to get out and that's where Rob was. Chris backed up against the wall as he heard Rob climb the stairs. He then paused outside the bathroom door, listening. Chris watched the door fearfully. The door handle slowly turned...and the door swung open...

* * *

Wyatt climbed up the stone steps to his house and pushed open the wooden door.

"Hey i'm home!" he called through the house. His mom came through from the kitchen.

"Hey sweetie, good day at school?" she asked brightly.

Wyatt nodded trying to smile but failing miserably. Piper noticed and she frowned.

"What's wrong honey?" she asked walking over.

Wyatt shrugged and looked down. "I dunno, i just..."

"Just what?"

"I was just thinking about...Chris." he said looking up and into his mother's eyes.

Piper's shoulder's sagged and the pain of loss became evident in her chocolate brown eyes.

"What about him?" she asked, sounding like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

"I was just thinking about how different life would have been if i'd grown up with him. He'd be what? Fourteen now?"

Piper nodded, the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Wyatt looked at her guiltily.

"I'm sorry mom, i didn't mean to upset you."

"No sweetie, it's okay. We don't talk about him enough, i don't think." she said giving him a small, watery smile.

She walked over to the living room and sat on the couch, gesturing with her hand for him to do the same. He walked over and sat beside her. He knew she was about to talk so he waited.

"When your brother was taken, i just...couldn't bear it. It was your dad that kept it together and got me through it. I just wanted to give up on everything. But i knew that i had to keep going for you because you deserved to have a happy childhood. It hurts me everyday to not have him here with us. I keep trying to imagine what he'd look like now, if he still has brown hair and the small freckle at the side of his nose...his beautiful green eyes. I always wonder what his personality is like. I've always imagined him as this confident, chatty kid that's always full of energy, you know? But we don't even know if he's still alive...I've always had this feeling that he is but...i'm not sure." Piper said. She'd taken hold of his hand when she started talking and she squeezed it gently.

"I've always had that feeling too." said Wyatt. "It's like we're connected somehow."

Piper looked at him. "Yea?"

Wyatt nodded.

"So what made you think about him today?" Piper asked.

"Well...there was this boy that i met today...he just reminded me of Chris. His name was Chris too but his second name was Brown. That's really what made me think about him. His name..." answered Wyatt.

Piper nodded. "So does this boy go to your school?"

"Yea i think so."

Suddenly they were interrupted by the door opening and Phoebe walking in.

"Hey you two! Everything okay?"

Piper and Wyatt nodded.

"I'm, uh, gonna go do my homework." said Wyatt standing up.

"Okay." said Piper quietly and she smiled up at him. He smiled back and left to go upstairs.

"Oh was i interrupting an important conversation?" Phoebe asked looking guilty.

Piper shook her head. "No it's okay Phoebe, we were just talking about...Chris." she finished quietly.

Phoebe eyes saddened and she looked at her sister sympathetically.

"Oh honey." she said sitting down beside Piper and putting a comforting arm around her shoulder's.

"It's okay Phoebe." Piper said smiling gratefully at her sister. "I'm fine, everything's fine."

Phoebe looked her in the eyes. "Really?"

Piper nodded.

"Really."

* * *

Chris groaned in pain and tried to open his eyes. They were sore and swollen but he eventually managed to open them. He took in his surroundings and realised he was lying on the hard bathroom floor. His whole body ached. Then he remembered.

Rob had swung open the door and saw him standing there. Then he'd flown into a huge rage and beat the shit out of him. He must have been knocked unconscious. Chris slowly sat up. He could taste the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and he spat onto the floor, trying to get rid of it. His head felt weird too and he felt tired...so tired... He just wanted to lie back down and go to sleep...

No. He'd had that feeling before and he knew what it meant. He had a concussion. He knew that if he gave into that feeling of sleepiness then there was a chance that he wouldn't wake up again. He fought against it and tried to concentrate on the task of standing up. Chris grasped the edge of the sink and tried to pull himself up. He had pains in his chest area and it hurt to breath...probably a few broken ribs...After around ten minutes, he managed to get shakily to his feet. He looked at his reflection. His face was already starting to bruise. His bottom lip was split and dried blood was left in a trail coming from his nose to the top of his lip. It had started to bleed again when Rob punched him in the face a couple of times. He had cuts and grazes to go with the bruises too but he wasn't sure how he got them. Possibly from the ring that Rob always wore.

Chris shakily lifted his t-shirt and saw large purple bruises starting to form across his stomach and chest. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep on his front for, at least, a couple of weeks. He tried taking smaller breaths because the pain was growing with every one he took in. He slowly bent down to knee level, gritting his teeth against the pain. He opened the cupboard under the sink and took out the antiseptic. He cleaned the cuts and grazes on his face, wincing at the sting of it. After he was finished, Chris put the bottle away and looked out the window that overlooked the overgrown garden. It was dark outside but it was getting lighter so Chris guessed that it was the early hours of the morning. He couldn't hear Rob anywhere in the house.

_Probably drowning himself in alcohol in a club somewhere._

Chris sighed quietly and walked slowly out of the bathroom. The house had two bedrooms, one for each of them and Chris made his way to his. He walked inside and lowered himself gently on to his mattress. He didn't have a proper bed. It was just a mattress in the middle of the floor with a thin blanket to try and keep warm with during the winter nights. Chris lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling.

He'd always considered telling someone about the abuse that he suffered but he never did. For one thing, he was scared of what Rob would do to him if he told anyone and also he...well he kind of blamed himself.

Chris had saw Rob with other people and he acted totally different to them than he did with Chris. Whenever Rob was going out to meet someone he would always shower and put on clean clothes and he was always sober. He had lots of friends down the pub and he was even friendly to some other kids Chris's age. He got on with all the guys down his work too. But when it came to Chris he completely changed. Whenever he was alone with Chris he changed into the abusive, violent drunken man that Chris had known since he was nine years old.

So then...if Rob was so great with everyone else but not with him, then it had to mean it was something that he'd done right? It had to mean that he deserved to be hit everyday. Rob would never hit any of his friends so if he hit Chris like he had for the past 5 years then it had to mean he deserved it...right?...

It was the only reasonable explanation. If things had been different, then Chris would have probably thought that it was just Rob putting on a mask for his friends and showing his real self around Chris but he wasn't so sure about that. Rob wasn't the first foster parent to abuse him so a lot of people had had the same urge to hurt him and Chris was convinced that it had to be something that he'd done . Rob wasn't even the worst. Actually he was actually quite mellow compared to some of the people he'd had. The worst out of them all had to have been the one before Rob...

He still had nightmares about that man. Chris had been taken to him when he was eight years old, just two weeks after he'd been taken away from Grace and her husband. His name was Barry Shieldman. Chris hadn't stayed with him for long but it had been long enough. Other foster kids stayed there too and, even though they'd had to suffer the same thing, he was glad they'd been there because it meant he hadn't had to through it alone...

Chris had been there three weeks when Barry had started molesting him. He'd been playing alone in the bedroom that he shared with some of the other kids when Barry had came in. He'd watched Chris for a moment and then slowly walked over, smiling as Chris looked up at him. Then he'd sat on one of the beds and pulled Chris onto his lap. Chris hadn't been used to affection like that and had stiffened but then relaxed after a few moments. Then the rest was a hazy blur. All that Chris remembered was Barry whispering things to him as he put his hand under the waistband of Chris's jeans...

Chris had cried after that. He hadn't fully understood what Barry had done but he didn't like it. Then Barry did it again. And again, and again. The other kids had to go through it too but then Barry did something worse to him...much worse...

Chris had been sleeping in the spare room because he had a headache and the other kids would disturb him. Barry had come in drunk. Chris had heard him come in and cowered under the covers, knowing what was coming next. Barry had pulled the covers back, but instead of sitting down and pulling Chris onto his lap like he usually did he climbed on top of him. He had undone the belt on his jeans and pulled them down. Chris had tried to wriggle out from underneath him but Barry had pinned him down. Then he pulled down Chris's pyjama bottoms, kissing his small stomach as he went. Then he'd ran his hands over him, feeling him. His chest, his stomach...Chris remembered crying then. Then Barry had turned him over...

The pain had ripped through him and he had screamed and started sobbing but Barry had covered his mouth with one of his free hands, kissing his neck at the same time. It had lasted for around 15 minutes until Barry groaned loudly and cried out his name. Then he'd lay gasping for a moment, climbed off of him, put his jeans back on and left.

Chris couldn't remember how long he'd just lay there, staring glassy eyed at the wall. The event had traumatized him and now it still affected him. He hated people touching him, even if it was just a friendly pat on the arm because it reminded him too much of Barry's hands running possessively over his body...

Chris wasn't aware that he was crying until he felt his cuts and grazes sting as the tears rolled into them. He'd never told anyone that Barry had raped him, not even the other kids at that house that he'd befriended and learnt to trust. From what he gathered, Barry had never done it to any of the others and so he had felt like he couldn't relate to any of them on that level. He was lucky though. Barry never got a chance to do it again because a couple of days after the attack, two social workers came to take them all away because a complaint had been made by a teacher at the school they all attended. Apparently one of the kids, a little girl called Rosie, had told her about Barry when she'd been crying.

Chris wondered how she'd had the guts to tell the teacher anything. But then again, maybe she had been so upset at the time that it had just slipped out. Chris had been so tempted over the last couple of weeks to phone Valerie and tell her what was going on but he knew he'd just get moved onto someone else and that person could end up to be even worse than Rob. They would probably be nice at first and then they'd start to get frustrated with him and then the abuse would begin.

That's how it went with Rob. Valerie had explained to him about his experiences in foster care and he'd been great for the first couple of weeks. He really had. He made Chris laugh, something he hadn't done in years, and Chris thought that this time would be different. But he was wrong. After a few months Rob changed and then he started hitting him. At first he would go back to Chris and apologise and say he would never hurt him again but he did. Now he didn't even bother to try and be nice to him when he saw him.

Chris winced as he turned onto his side. He knew he should probably go to the hospital. The bones could end up healing wonky and he could end up in a lot more pain than he was now. He slowly sat up and shakily got to his feet. It took him 10 minutes just to walk downstairs but he eventually got there and he left the house, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

At the hospital he sat on the examination table as the nurse checked him over. She pressed gently on his rib cage area and took note of how many times he winced or said it hurt. She then checked to see if he had a concussion but telling him to follow her finger. He found it difficult and she took note of this too before checking for any more broken bones.

"So how did this all happen?" she asked as she checked his legs for any sign of breakage.

"I slipped and fell down the stairs." Chris made up. He'd thought the explanation up when he'd been sitting in the waiting room at A&E.

"Where were you're parents?"

"I'm in foster care." said Chris wishing he could actually have said his mom and dad were in the living room or something. "I live with my foster dad Robert."

"Oh, so where was he?" the nurse asked, now checking his arms..

"He works night shift, i didn't want to bother him." lied Chris.

"Well we could call him if you like?" the nurse suggested.

"No!" Chris said suddenly. A little too suddenly.

The nurse frowned at him and stopped checking him over. Chris tried to retrace his steps.

"I-i mean, he hates hospitals and i wouldn't want to freak him out." he said.

"Well we'll need to let him know that you're here. And we'll need to keep you in for now, just so we can do x-rays and so on." explained the nurse.

"You don't need to keep me in, i'm fine! Just bandage me up and send me on my way!" said Chris, slightly panic stricken. If Rob knew he'd come to the hospital, he'd be in big trouble.

"I'm afraid "just bandaging you up" won't help you that much until we can see the extent of the damage." said the nurse.

Chris sat for a moment thinking. He had an idea of what he could do...It wasn't exactly a very hard plan to complete but he knew there was a chance that he'd get caught...

Chris decided to take his chances.

"Well then, would it be alright if you do the x-rays and fix me up and then i'll call him?" he asked hopefully.

The nurse hesitated for a moment.

"It's just, i don't want him to come any earlier than he has to. He hates hospital you see." Chris said, lying through his teeth.

The nurse sighed. "Oh alright then."

Chris smiled and sighed quietly in relief as she left to book him in for the x-rays. Part one of the plan was complete.

A couple of hours later and he was ready to go. After the x-rays the nurse had bandaged him up so that his bones could heal properly. Now she was writing his information down on the patient sheet on her clipboard. He was expected to go phone Rob now. He excused himself from the room as if he was going to make the call but instead of going to a pay phone he went straight past them and out the hospital doors.

He hurried home. He prayed that Rob wouldn't have noticed his absence as he opened the front door. He quietly walked up the stairs, listening out for Rob but he didn't hear anything. When he was safe in his room he lowered himself carefully on to his mattress. He was so tired. The bad thing was that he only had an hour and a half until he had to get up to go to school. He sighed.

Only one thought flashed through his mind at this particular moment in time.

Life sucked.

* * *

Now please review!


	3. Brothers Found

A/N Hi everyone! Here's another chapter for you! Thanks to everyone that reviewed! Anyway, happy reading!

* * *

Chris awoke to the sounds of birds singing sweetly outside his bedroom window. He'd managed to fall into a restless sleep after 15 minutes of just staring up at the ceiling. He was probably late for school, due to the fact that he didn't have an alarm clock to wake him up at the right time or a watch to even check the time. 

Chris yawned and rubbed his eyes. He'd had the weirdest dream. In the dream the boy he'd met the day before, Wyatt, was there. Wyatt had taken him into the magnolia coloured Victorian house, with the stone steps and the stained glassed windows. It was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside, with a foyer and a solarium at the back of the house. He'd met the people that lived there but he couldn't remember their faces. All he remembered was that he'd met three woman, all with brown hair and a man with green eyes. They'd all been so happy to see him, hugging him and crying in happiness at his arrival. Wyatt had stood smiling in the background and when he got the chance, he hugged him too. He hadn't even felt uncomfortable when the hugged him like he usually did when people touched him. He didn't know why.

Even though he'd never set foot in that house, in the dream it felt right to be there. Chris felt that the dream was trying to tell him something and he had this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he knew what it was.

The women had brown hair...what if one of them was...No. It couldn't be could it? Millions of women all over the world had brown hair, it didn't mean that all of them could be his mother.

But that man. He had green eyes, just like his own...maybe he was...No. That was a stupid idea too. It was probably just a coincidence.

And then there was Wyatt...Chris had felt a strong connection to the older boy, in and out of the dream...he'd brushed it off on the day he'd bumped into him but now...he felt that it meant something...

But what did it mean? Chris was desperate to find out but he didn't know how he could go about it. Maybe if he talked to Wyatt again he'd find out. Yes, that's what he'd do. He didn't know exactly what he'd accomplish by talking to Wyatt but maybe it'd help him understand the dream better.

He got up and put on his clean jeans and t-shirt. He could have just bunked off school if he wanted to but he needed to talk to Wyatt. At least to just put his mind at rest. He jogged down the stairs. His ribs and bruising were hurting him but he didn't care. He opened the door, grabbed his bag and ran out, slamming the door behind him.

When he arrived at school he found that he had missed the first period. He hurried up to the school office, registered himself as being late and went of to his second class. It was unfortunately Maths, his worst subject but he went to it anyway, wishing the time would go quickly until recess.

* * *

"God must be against me." Chris thought grudgingly as he sat in Maths class bored out of his skull and half listening to the teacher droning on and on about stuff like "If x y and x and y added together make 514, what is the value of x?" 

Why whenever he wanted something, did it happen the exact opposite of what he wanted it to! It had only been 20 frickin' minutes! Another 40 to go until recess...

"Christopher! Will you pay attention!" Mr Bates shouted at him, snapping him out of his thoughts. He could hear Marcus sniggering behind him.

"Sorry Mr Bates." Chris ground out through gritted teeth.

Mr Bates shot him a pointed look and then went back to writing on the S.M.A.R.T board (A/N for those who don't know, a S.M.A.R.T board is like a computerised white board. It's connected to a computer and the stuff on the computer is projected on to it but you can also write on it with special pens and use it as if that were the computer)

Chris felt a paper ball hit the back of his head. He spun around in his chair and saw Marcus laughing quietly at him. He picked up the paper ball and through it back. It hit Marcus square in the middle of his forehead. Marcus shot up his hand.

"Yes Mr. Louden?" Mr Bates questioned looking at him.

"Chris threw a paper ball at me and it hit me in the face!" Marcus said, smirking at Chris as he did.

Chris glared at him angrily. "What! You are so full of shi-"

"Christopher! I just told you off for not paying attention and now you're throwing paper around the class! That is not acceptable behaviour!"

Chris began to protest. "But he-

"That's enough! Go and stand in the corridor, i'll be out to talk to you in a minute!"

Chris gritted his teeth to stop himself saying any more. He scraped his chair back so far that it hit Marcus's desk and left the room with a thunderous look on his face. He called the teacher all the names under the sun in his mind as he slammed the door shut behind him.

He leaned against the wall outside the classroom and closed his eyes with a defeated sigh. It wasn't even half way into the school day yet and he was already in trouble!

"Chris?"

Chris snapped open his eyes and saw Wyatt walking towards him.

"Hey." Chris said, relieved to see a friendly face.

"What are you doing out in the hallway?" Wyatt asked.

"Mr Bates sent me out for throwing paper ball at this guys head." Chris explained as Wyatt stood in front of him.

Wyatt laughed. "So do you normally preform violent acts on people, like throwing stuff at their heads or knocking into them for example." he said referring to the day before.

"That was an accident, i didn't see you!" Chris protested.

Wyatt put his hands up in defeat with a grin on his face. "Okay, okay i believe you."

"So what are _you_ doing out in the hallway then?" Chris asked.

"Ah, i'm not in trouble i'm running an errand for a teacher." Wyatt replied

"I don't think there's a day that goes by when i'm not in trouble!" Chris said with a smile.

Wyatt laughed but then he turned serious. "Erm...this might be a dumb question but do i know you from somewhere?"

"Yea i think it's called school." Chris said still smiling.

"No shit sherlock." Wyatt said smiling back and Chris laughed. "No i mean, somewhere apart from school. I feel like i know you but i don't think i've met you before yesterday."

"That's weird, i was thinking the same thing." said Chris.

"Yea?"

Chris nodded. "Hey maybe we knew each other in another life." he suggested shrugging. He wasn't getting much closure about his dream but he was comfortable with talking about other stuff at the moment.

"You believe in that stuff?" Wyatt asked.

"Yea." said Chris with a care free smile. "It gives me something to believe in i guess."

"I believe in that stuff too but it's hard to find anyone else that does...apart from my family but we're basically a bunch of weirdos" he smiled. There was more truth to that statement than Chris probably thought.

"Well at least you have a family." Chris said with a sad smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

"You don't?"

"No, i've been in foster care since i was 11 months old. I've never met my real family." Chris trying to hide the sadness and longing in his voice.

"That's rough." said Wyatt. Then he realised what Chris had just said. "Wait, how old did you say you were?"

"11 months. I was found on a doorstep." said Chris.

Wyatt's eyes widened and his face drained itself of all it's colour. Chris frowned and was about to ask him what was wrong when the door of his class swung open and Mr Bates stepped out.

"What are you doing out of your class?" he asked Wyatt sternly.

Wyatt swallowed, breaking his eyes away from Chris and looking down at the teacher (Mr Bates was a little bit on the short side).

"I was, uh, running an errand for my teacher." he said. His eyes kept flickering between Mr Bates and Chris. He couldn't stop looking at the boy...not now...

"Well get to it then and get back to class, instead of chatting to pupils that have been sent out of their class for misbehaving!" Mr Bates snapped.

"Yes sir." Wyatt said. "See you later." he said to Chris and he walked off down the hall.

As he walked, he stared at the floor in disbelief. It all fitted...his name...his looks...his age...

Wyatt's head snapped up and he gasped quietly to himself.

Had he just found his brother?

* * *

Once Wyatt had turned the corner Mr Bates turned to Chris with a sort of sympathetic look on his face. 

"Now Christopher, i know that life has been hard for you and i know most of that is due to your bad experiences in care but that doesn't give you any right to misbehave in class." said Mr Bates, changing his tone from before into a gentle one. It made Chris want to puke.

"Mr Bates, Marcus-

"Now, now let me speak." interrupted Mr Bates. "I know you may have inner anger because of your experiences and sometimes you don't know how to let it out so you sometimes misbehave but there are other ways to let out your anger. You could take up karate class or kick boxing, those are good ways of letting out anger."

Chris stared at him in disbelief. Was this guy for real! Chris could imagine the load of shit he was talking about just spewing out of his mouth.

"All i'm asking is, you try to control yourself in class and try to behave. I've heard from other teachers that you misbehave in their classes too and it's getting out of hand."

Instead of the tiresome bother of arguing, Chris decided just to agree with the freak. "Okay Mr Bates."

Mr Bates nodded. "Thank you Christopher. You may go back into class now." he said stepping aside and opening the door.

Chris walked past him and into the class. He glared at Marcus who just smirked at him and sat back down in his seat. At least being outside the class and talking to Wyatt had killed at least 10 or 15 minutes.

_Finally _the class ended and Chris hurried out to the school grounds. A lot of people stared at the bruises under his eyes and on his jaw and he knew they were thinking he had been in yet another fight. Yea he'd been in a fight but he'd really just lay there trying to protect himself as his foster father laid into him.

"Hey freak! Who kicked your ass?"

Chris spun around and saw Marcus striding towards him with a smirk on his face and all his friends following closely behind him.

"No-one you know." Chris said giving Marcus a fake smile.

"Well tell him thanks for me." said Marcus and his followers sniggered. "But i want my turn now."

"You really think you could kick my ass?" Chris questioned, raising his eyebrows as Marcus stopped in front of him.

"I know i could." Marcus sneered at him. "And i will." he added.

"When exactly?" Chris asked, not really fazed by the threat.

"Now." Marcus said gruffly.

He suddenly swung a punch at Chris's head. Chris's eyes widened and he ducked, Marcus's fist just missing him. He punched Marcus in the stomach and straightened up again. Marcus grunted in slight pain. Chris watched him clutch his stomach.

"That was too easy." he thought. Marcus never went down that easy when they had a fight. He was up to something...

Suddenly, without warning Marcus launched forward, grabbing Chris around the middle and sending them both flying to the ground. Chris just managed to stop himself crying out as the pain seared through his damaged ribs. He, unluckily, had fallen with Marcus landing on top of him and this gave Marcus the chance to get to him. He climbed on top of Chris properly, straddling him, and began trying to punch him in the face. Chris could hear a large group of kids in a circle around them chanting.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Chris managed to block most of them with his arms but Marcus got a couple of them in. Chris could feel the familiar metallic taste of blood fill his mouth. He hit Marcus's fist away with his right arm and managed to punch Marcus in the face. Blood spurted out of his nose and on to Chris's knuckles. Marcus fell sideways and rolled off of him. Chris quickly got to his feet and was about to walk towards Marcus still lying on the ground when he felt someone grab him from behind. The person pulled his arms behind his back roughly.

"Go on Marcus! Get him!" the person shouted and Chris realised it was Brian. The bastard.

Marcus got to his feet and grinned when he saw Brian holding Chris. Chris struggled against him but Brian held on tightly. Marcus walked towards him swiftly and punched him in the stomach. Chris gasped for air as he bent forward, winded. Marcus punched him in the face once and then again. Suddenly he stepped back with an almost evil smile on his face. He reached into his pocket and as Chris saw a flash of stainless steal his eyes widened. Marcus twirled the knife in his hand, pointing it in front of him. Chris heard girls screaming when they noticed it and some guys shouted in the background. Marcus took one swift step forward and took hold of the back of Chris's hair with his free hand, wrenching his head back. He put the knife against his throat. Chris felt the blade graze against it and he felt a small sting as it broke the skin.

"I'm going to make you wish you'd never been born." Marcus hissed so only him and Chris could hear.

"A few people have already beaten you to it." Chris said back, glaring at him.

Marcus looked confused for a moment but then he stepped away from Chris. He glared dangerously at him. He put one hand on Chris's shoulder and brought his hand with the knife back. Now almost all the girls were screaming. Marcus thrust his arm forwards and Chris snapped his eyes shut, trying to brace himself for the pain that was sure to come. But it never came. Instead he felt Marcus being pulled away from him and then he heard someone punching someone else. Chris opened his eyes so he could see what was going on. His eyes widened when he saw Wyatt bending down beside Marcus, who was on the ground clutching his jaw, and wrenching the knife out of his hand. He straightened up and turned around.

"Oh shit!" Brian exclaimed as Wyatt walked over and he let go of Chris. Chris heard him and the rest of Marcus's friends pushing through the crowd and running away.

Chris could hear people starting to gossip about what had just happened and the crowd began to disperse. Wyatt stopped in front of him as Chris wiped away the blood that was coming out of his mouth.

"Are you okay?" Wyatt asked, full of concern.

Chris nodded. "Yea..."

He looked down, embarrassed by having to get help in a fight. "Thanks for...saving my ass." he mumbled.

Wyatt smiled. "No problem. I wasn't just going to stand there and let him knife you when you're being held there."

Chris smiled in gratitude. "Thanks for sticking up for me though. Not many people do..."

Wyatt frowned. "Why not?"

Chris shrugged. "I'm a troublemaker i guess. I don't have any real friends. Sad right?"

Wyatt felt a burst of sympathy for Chris. From the times he'd talked to him, Chris seemed really nice and down to earth. It surprised him that he didn't have any friends.

"Well...we're friends aren't we?" he asked.

Chris looked up at him and smiled slightly. "Yea okay. I must warn you though, i have a lot of enemies. You might get some trouble."

"Doesn't bother me. I can look after myself, don't worry." Wyatt replied smiling.

Chris smiled back but then the bell rang, indicating that it was time for their next class.

"I'll see you later Wyatt." he said as he walked off.

"Bye." said Wyatt and he too went to his next class.

He felt good that he'd helped Chris. Ever since he knew, or he thought he knew, Chris was his younger brother he'd felt the need to protect him. But then again...what if Chris wasn't his brother? Yea, a lot of things pointed to the fact that he was but what if they were just really big coincidences? He'd have to ask Chris more questions and make sure...

The rest of the day flew by quickly. Amazingly, Chris and Marcus weren't called up to the principals office for fighting and no-one had told any teachers about Marcus having a knife. Chris was tempted to himself but he didn't want any more trouble with people than he already had. The bell indicating that it was the end of the day rang and everybody made their way home. As Chris walked down the path he heard someone calling his name and he turned around to see Wyatt walking towards him.

"Hey." he said as Wyatt walked up.

"Hi. So did you and Marcus get in trouble?" Wyatt asked.

"Nope. Which is lucky i guess. I don't want to get in trouble with Rob for getting a detention." Chris replied and then he realised what he'd just said. He swallowed nervously, hoping that Wyatt wouldn't ask deeper questions about Rob.

"Who's Rob?" Wyatt asked.

"My foster father. I've lived with him for 4 years." Chris replied.

"Oh so have you had more than one foster parent?"

Chris nodded, slightly uncomfortable with the subject. "Yea, i've had a few."

"So did one of them name you when you were found?" Wyatt asked.

"Well Chris was written on to a piece of paper that was pinned to the blanket i was wrapped in so my social worker knew that much." Chris said.

"What about you're second name?"

"I just get named after whatever foster parent i have."

"So Brown isn't your real surname?" Wyatt asked.

"No." said Chris. "Why are you so interested?"

"Oh...i dunno, i just am. Am i making you feel uncomfortable? Cause if i am we can talk about something else..."

"No, it's okay. I guess i'm just not used to talking to anyone about it." said Chris.

"Okay. So...haven't you had any contact with your real family?"

"Nope, none." said Chris sadly.

"What would you do if you met them?" Wyatt asked.

Chris thought for a moment. "I...i dunno. You know it's weird, i always imagine what they're like but i've never imagined what i would do if i met them...i know i'd be happy...and excited. But i guess it would all depend on their reaction of seeing me."

"Well they'd be happy too wouldn't they?"

"I'd hope so but...they're the ones that abandoned me on that doorstep after all."

"How'd you know?"

"What?"

"How do you know it was them that left you there?" Wyatt asked.

"Well who else could it be?" said Chris.

"Maybe...maybe you were kidnapped...and then left there by your kidnappers." said Wyatt, thinking about what his parents had told him.

"Maybe...i guess i'll never know." said Chris.

"How?"

"Well it's unlikely i'll ever meet my family to find out." said Chris.

"You never know, you might find them next week."

Chris smiled and looked at Wyatt. "I doubt it."

There was a small silence and then Wyatt spoke again. "So what have you imagined they'd be like?"

"I guess i imagined them to be one of those families that may be a bit dysfunctional but still, you know, love each other."

Wyatt smiled at how accurate a description Chris was giving of his own family. Dysfunctional was a bit of an understatement though.

"I had this dream...of my mom." Chris said.

Wyatt's head snapped up. "Yea? What about her?"

"Well i think she was my mom. She was a woman with long brown hair and soft skin and...she was singing to me." Chris said, slightly embarrassed.

Wyatt's eyes widened at the small description of the woman. His mom fitted it.

They turned into a new street. It was the one with the rows of Victorian houses.

"What if your family found you instead of you finding them?" Wyatt asked.

"That's even more unlikely." said Chris.

Wyatt stopped outside the magnolia coloured house.

"Well this is my stop." he said.

"You live here?" Chris asked, looking up at the house in amazement.

"Yea." said Wyatt.

"I walk past this house everyday on my way to and from school. It's my favourite one out of the street." Chris said.

Wyatt smiled. Chris looked down.

"Uh, i better get going." he said. "I'll see you later."

He began to walk away. Wyatt looked up at the house and then back at Chris.

"Hey wait!" he called.

Chris turned around. "Yea?"

"Do you want to come in? My mom won't mind. She likes every chance she can get to bake cookies for someone." he said smiling.

Chris hesitated. "I...i dunno. Rob will be in at 5:00-

"Oh come on. I'm sure he won't mind and you can phone him later if you want. My mom would love to meet you."

"She would?"

"Yea...she's weird like that. She likes meeting my friends." said Wyatt.

Chris smiled but then shook his head. "Sorry, but i can't."

"Why not?"

"Rob would be really mad if i wasn't in-

"Why would he be so mad?"

"He's just like that." Chris said.

"Well what's the worst he's gonna do? Ground you?"

"You don't understand." Chris said quietly, wrapping his arms around himself. A sign of insecurity. Wyatt noticed this and frowned slightly. What was he afraid of?

"What don't i understand?"

Chris looked up at him. "I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"Don't you think i've told you enough already! I barely know you! You're practically a stranger and i've told you most of my life story already!"

"Well maybe you just feel that you can trust me."

"Why do you care about me?" Chris asked all of a sudden.

"What?"

"Why do you care?" Chris repeated. "You barely know me but...you've been so nice to me and helping me in that fight...i just want to know why you care so much."

"I just do."

"But why?"

"Because i...i..."

"Because what?" Chris asked, getting slightly frustrated.

"Okay look." Wyatt said going closer to him. "When i was two and a half years old i had an 11 month old brother called Chris. He was kidnapped and...we never saw him again." he let the information sink in.

Chris thought for a moment about what Wyatt had just told him. Wait. Was Wyatt telling him what he thought he was telling him? He looked up at Wyatt, wide eyed and Wyatt nodded.

"I think you're my brother."

* * *

So they're finally figured out who the other actually is! How will Chris take the news and more importantly, what will Piper and Leo's reaction to finding the son they lost 13 years ago? Read the next chapter to find out! And of course, review! 


	4. Panic Attack

A/N Hey! Here's another chapter, which I think was _kind of_ quick. Hey, I tried my best! Thanks so much to everyone that reviewed, I love reading them, especially if they're long ones! Hint hint. ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's shorter than the other ones but the next one will be longer.

* * *

Chris stared at Wyatt in shock. His brother! Was he being serious! No, he couldn't be. He was mucking him about. He was lying to him... 

"That's not funny." he said, shaking his head at Wyatt. Why would Wyatt play such a sick joke on him?

"Chris I'm not joking, I'm being deadly serious. I wouldn't lie about something as serious as this." Wyatt said, trying to convince him.

Chris shook his head. "I..I need to to go." he turned around and started to walk away.

"Chris wait." Wyatt said and he hastily grabbed Chris's arm.

Chris flinched at the contact and, noticing this, Wyatt frowned and let him go.

"Just hear me out." he said desperately. He'd just found his brother after 13 years of him being missing and he wasn't about to just let him walk away.

Chris hesitated but then nodded. "Okay." he said quietly and he stood still

"It all fits. Everything fits Chris. The age you were when you were taken, the woman in your dream, your name." said Wyatt listing it all. "Your the age my brother would be now. When's your birthday?"

"November the 15th." Chris answered.

Wyatt smiled and nodded. "That's the same birthday too."

Chris looked down taking it all in. He wanted to believe Wyatt so much but he was scared that he wrong. If Wyatt was wrong, but he believed him then he'd just be setting himself up to get hurt.

"Your looks as well." said Wyatt. "You look so much like mom."

Chris looked up at him. "I do?"

"Yea." Wyatt said nodding. "You're hair and your skin are the same. And the shape of your mouth...and your nose too. You have dad's eyes though."

Chris looked down again, secretly pleased. So he did have his dads eyes...

_No. Stop thinking like that! He might still be wrong..._

"All that stuff can't just be coincidence Chris." Wyatt said.

Chris thought about it. It did make sense.

"You're right...I think." said Chris quietly.

Wyatt nodded. "Yea."

Chris looked up at the house. His family...his real family, were just metres away from him. Wyatt was right...all that was too big to be a coincidence. His age, when he was kidnapped...

"You still have that freckle mom told me about..." Wyatt said thoughtfully.

Chris looked back at him and frowned. "Freckle?"

"The one at the side of your nose."

Chris unconsciously brought his hand up to where Wyatt had just said.

"She always said she liked it." said Wyatt.

"Really?" Chris asked with a small smile and Wyatt nodded.

"So...do you want to come in now?" Wyatt asked.

Chris hesitated again. He'd always imagined the moment he'd meet his family and how he couldn't wait for that moment but now that the moment had come...

He was nervous. What if they didn't like him? What if he wasn't what they expected him to be?

"They'll love you no matter what you know. They still do love you. Just because they've been separated from you doesn't mean they ever stopped." Wyatt said gently, picking up on Chris's insecurity.

Chris looked at him and Wyatt smiled back reassuringly. Chris gave a small smile back and looked up at the house.

"Come on." said Wyatt nodded his head sideways at the house.

Chris took in a deep shaky breath and nodded. "Okay."

Wyatt led him up the stone steps to the door. As he walked, he kept having to tell himself to calm down. He was shaking, he was so nervous. He was excited too obviously but...what if the parents he'd come up with in his mind, the ones that he knew loved him, were nothing like the ones sitting in that house? He believed Wyatt on some level about them still loving him but what if they changed their minds when they met him? What if what happened with his foster parents happened with his real parents too? What if they started hitting him?

Those questions took over his mind and he stopped walking. He didn't want that to happen! He didn't want them to start hitting him. But...that's what happened with everyone. Everyone wanted to hit him. And it was his own fault...it was his own fault...it had to be his own fault because not all those people could be wrong...

"I can't do this." he said quietly looking fearfully up at the house.

"What?" Wyatt asked turning around.

"I can't to this." Chris whispered shaking his head.

"Yes you can!" said Wyatt, desperately trying to reassure him.

"No..I can't...they'll do it too..." he whispered, starting to panic.

"Do what?" Wyatt asked but Chris ignored him.

"They'll hate me too..." he whispered, still looking at the house. Tears were beginning to gathering in his eyes.

"No they won't! They love you." said Wyatt.

"They'll hate me...then they'll start..."

"Start what?" Wyatt asked. He was starting to get desperate. Why was Chris suddenly acting so scared and panicky?

"Everyone else did it...and they'll start it too...

"Chris, start what? What did everybody else do?"

"I don't want it to happen again...I don't want it to happen again..." whispered Chris, completely ignoring Wyatt. The tears were now rolling down his cheeks and Wyatt watched him worriedly, trying to understand what was going through his head.

"I don't want them to hit me..." Chris said so quietly that Wyatt strained to hear him. "I just want them to love me..."

Chris realised as he was saying this that he wasn't just thinking about his real parents, but all of his foster parents he'd had. He was saying out loud what he'd wanted over the years, when his foster parents had hit him or when Barry molested him. Well in some sick, twisted way Barry had loved him but not in a way a parent should have.

When he was at school he would listen to groups of kids going on to each other how they're mom's were driving them nuts because she kept nagging at them to wear their coats outside or their dad was too protective and only let them out till 9:30 and he would think, well it's only because they love you. At least you have the love of the people that brought you into this world. All those kids took that love for granted.

"What? Chris they won't hit you! They'd never do that!"

Chris didn't say anything. He just looked up at the house with the tears streaming down his face and a tortured look in his eyes.

"Chris please, just come inside."

Chris looked at Wyatt.

"I'm sorry, but I can't." he said.

He turned around and ran done the steps. Wyatt eyes widened.

"Chris wait! Please!"

Chris ignored him and continued running. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He was running away from the chance to meet his family. He was just throwing it away. But he didn't want to get hurt. That's why he was running away. Because he didn't want to get hurt. Wyatt kept saying that they'd love him but that's what his social worker used to say to him when she put him in a new home. She'd say that she was sure this time would be different and that these foster parents would love him and take care of him. And he believed her. He'd go to that new home believing that he was going to receive the love that he'd always wanted and then...he wouldn't get it and they'd start hitting him...that's the point where he'd get hurt. Not physically but mentally. He'd put his trust in the fact that they'd love him and then that trust was broken...over and over again...

He was no longer in the street now but he continued running anyway. He knew Wyatt had tried to run after him but he'd stopped around halfway down the street. Chris was glad he was a fast runner.

Chris was soon back at his house. He was glad to see that Rob wasn't in yet and he quickly let himself in. As he got in and closed the door, he leaned against the wall. He was breathing quickly, not just from the running, and the tears were still rolling down his cheeks. He stared straight ahead of him in slight shock. He slid down the wall.

Ever since he was little he'd get panic attacks like the one he'd just had. The conflicted thoughts in his mind would get too much or the situation would become too stressful for him to handle and he'd begin to panic. His breathing would become very fast and, depending on the situation, he'd start crying. He wouldn't listen to what anybody was saying and he'd keep repeating himself about whatever was causing him to panic, unless the situation required him too be quiet like when he was younger and he was hiding from his abusive foster parents. He would shake too like he was now. He was shaking uncontrollably and he couldn't stop it.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, staring ahead of him. He'd lost all sense of time as he went deep into his thoughts and it wasn't until he hard the door of Rob's van slam shut that he snapped out of it. He looked fearfully at the front door but he made no effort to move. What was the point? Rob would get him if he ran or not.

The front door swung open and Rob stomped in. He didn't see Chris at first and nearly tripped over him as he began to make his way to the kitchen. He looked down to see the source of him tripping and he glared at Chris angrily when he saw him.

"What the fuck are you sitting on the floor for!"

Chris stared straight ahead, patently ignoring him. Rob's face contorted in anger and he roughly grabbed Chris by the hair and pulled him up. Chris had to grit his teeth to stop himself from crying out as he was dragged to his feet.

"Don't you fucking ignore me boy!" Rob roared pinning him against the wall.

Chris looked back at him defiantly. He didn't know if he was being brave or stupid but as Rob came in the door he decided that, at least for today, he wasn't going to take a beating lying down.

"Why were you sitting on the fucking floor!" Rob asked again, his face inches from Chris's.

"Is it illegal to sit on the floor?" Chris said back, his face emotionless.

Anger flashed in Rob's eyes. He stepped back quickly and backhanded Chris across the face.

"Don't you be fucking cheeky with me you fucking little bastard!" He growled.

He punched him and he fell to the floor painfully. Chris got to his hands and knees and got up. Rob punched in the face again and he fell back down. But again, he got back up. Blood was pouring out of his nose but he ignored it and glared at Rob. He knew he was making it worse but for once in his life, he didn't care. He would regret it in the morning but for now, he wasn't going to let Rob think he could just slap him around.

"I'm not scared of you." he said.

Rob went forward and pinned him to the wall again in one swift motion. He had one hand around Chris's throat.

"Then I'm give you something to be fucking scared about." Rob said, dangerously quiet.

He tightened his grip on Chris's throat. He kept on tightening it. Chris struggled to get the air into his lungs. He put his hands around Rob's wrist, trying to wrench it off of his throat but he wasn't strong enough.

_I can't breath...I can't breath...I can't breath...can't...breath..._

Just when his vision was starting to darken from the lack of oxygen Rob pushed him to the floor. He fell sideways awkwardly and just as he hit the ground, his head cracked on the radiator. His vision span as the pain seared through his head. He felt nauseous, he couldn't see properly...couldn't focus...where was Rob?...he couldn't see him...had he gone upstairs? He couldn't tell...

WHACK!

Rob kicked the side of his head causing his vision to be clouded over with darkness. He nearly lost conciousness but he managed to hang on. Rob kicked him again and he knew that he was starting to bleed. He could feel the wetness of it seeping through his hair. Rob kicked him once more and then again. By this point he knew he was moments from passing out. The pain searing through his head was unbelievable. What was Rob trying to do? Kill him? That's what it felt like.

Chris felt the warm blood trickle down his face and into his mouth. He couldn't stand the pain any more. It was too much...

Rob stopped kicking his head and started kicking him everywhere else. His chest, his stomach. Chris gritted teeth, his eyes screwed shut. He could feel the hot tears behind his eyelids but he didn't let them out. He tried thinking about something, to take his mind off the pain. But all he could think about as the blows reigned down on him was that he'd given up probably his only chance to be loved by people and come back to this where he experienced the abuse and neglect of a drunken man, suffering behind the closed doors.

What kind of an idiot was he?

* * *

Wyatt stared glumly into his bowl of soup. He couldn't believe Chris ran away. He'd found his brother and he'd been _so _close to getting him inside the house. If only he'd managed to calm him down... 

"You okay sweetie?"

Wyatt looked up to see his mom looking at him with a concerned look on her face. He was sitting at the dining table by himself. It was late now but he had been hungry so his mom had gave him a bowl of soup and sat him there whilst his cousins were put to bed by their moms. Leo, his dad, was sitting in the sunroom watching tv with Piper, or he had been until Piper had come through.

"I'm fine mom." Wyatt replied.

"You're looking a bit down. Something on your mind?" Piper asked, sitting down in the seat opposite him

"No, everything's great." Wyatt said.

"You can tell me if something's bothering you you know." Piper said gently.

Wyatt looked up at her. He hadn't told his parents about finding Chris. He knew it would upset them immensely to know that the son they'd lost 13 years ago had been standing right outside the front door and they hadn't had the chance to see him. But as he sat there he wondered if he should tell her. She did have a right to know. So did his dad...

"Mom, I...I found..."

"Found what honey?"

He looked into her eyes. "I found Chr-

'Ding-Dong'

Piper and Wyatt turned their heads in the direction of the door.

"Who could be at the door at this time?" Piper pondered, frowning.

Wyatt scraped his chair back from the table and stood up.

"I'll get it."

He walked towards the door. He himself was wondering who would be coming to the door at 10 pm . He heard his mom go back into the sunroom. He'd been so close to telling her about Chris but he knew he probably wouldn't try to tell her again tonight.

He got to the door and pulled it open. As he saw who was standing there he gasped.

It was Chris.

* * *

Ok I know I said that you'd see Piper and Leo's reaction in this chapter but I changed my mind. Sorry! In the next chapter, a family reunion and magic revealed! Remember Chris doesn't know about magic but his family doesn't know that...hmmm...how is he going to react I wonder...tune in next time to find out! 

Oh and remember to review of course!


	5. Revealed Magic and a Family Reunion

A/N Hallelujah it's another chapter! I said to a couple of people that this chapter would have been up by Friday but my internet connection went funky so I had to wait till it was fixed. Damn thing! Anyway, read and enjoy and don't worry, there is a Piper and Leo reaction in this one. Thanks to everyone that reviewed, I love reading your comments! Oh and just to refresh your memory, in the end of the last chapter there was a knock on the door, Wyatt answered the door and none other than Chris was standing on the doorstep!

* * *

"Chris!" 

Wyatt stared at him in shock. He was covered in bruises and there was blood practically flowing down the side of his face and out of his nose. There were tears running from his eyes too.

"Can I come in? I've got nowhere else to go..." Chris said quietly.

"Of course." Wyatt said quickly, stepping aside so Chris could get in.

Chris stepped in, grimacing in pain. He looked dazed, definitely out of it.

"Chris what happened to you? Who did this?" Wyatt asked him as he closed the door.

"He tried to kill me." Chris said quietly. He screwed his eyes shut as another wave of pain crashed over him and he put one arm around his torso. "It hurts..." he ground out.

"Okay come on. Come sit down." Wyatt said, putting his arm gently around Chris's shoulders and steering him towards the living room.

He sat Chris down on the couch and sat down beside him. Chris bent forwards, resting his arms on his thighs. He still had his eyes shut and he was trying to breath through the pain.

"Who tried to kill you Chris?" Wyatt asked, trying to be calm. He actually felt like going and ripping the head off the person's shoulders that did this.

Chris breathed shakily for a moment but then said. "Rob."

"Rob...your foster father?"

Chris slowly nodded. "He was choking me...I couldn't breath...then he started kicking me..."

"Why would he do that though?" Wyatt asked, frowning.

"I deserved it...I was being lippy."

Wyatt shook his head. "You didn't des-

"Who was at the door honey?"

Wyatt and Chris looked in the direction of the sunroom as Piper walked through. Her smile vanished when she saw Chris and the condition he was in. Wyatt quickly got up and walked over to Piper, pulling her back into the sunroom.

"Who's that? Is he alright?" she asked him.

"That's the boy I was telling you about-

"The one called Chris?" Piper asked.

"Yea. He's...he's been attacked."

"Well I figured that much." said Piper.

"Can he stay tonight? He has nowhere else to go." Wyatt asked, with a pleading look in his eyes.

"What about his parents? They'd want him to go home." said Piper.

"He's in foster care. It was his foster dad that did that to him." Wyatt said.

"What?" Piper said looking shocked. She looked back at Chris sitting in the living room who had his eyes shut again.

Wyatt watched her for a moment. Should he tell her now? If he did then maybe it'd stop Chris having to go back to that man.

"Mom, I've got something to tell you." he said. It was now or never...

"Sure sweetie, what is it?" Piper asked looking back at him.

"Uh..." Wait. His dad should be there too... "Where's dad? It would be better if he was here too."

"Oh, this must be a big something." said Piper raising her eyebrows. "Your dad is "Up There". Nothing too important, just a regular meeting."

"Can you call him down?" Wyatt asked.

Piper opened her mouth to reply but she didn't get the chance because Phoebe and Paige's voices came filtering into the room as they came down the stairs.

"Oh no. We better go drag them in here before they scare Chris away!" said Wyatt and Piper nodded in agreement. They walked swiftly into the foyer.

They smiled brightly at Phoebe and Paige, grabbed hold of their arms and pulled them towards the sunroom.

"Hey who's that?" Phoebe asked looking over at Chris as Wyatt pulled her.

"Yea, a new friend of yours Wyatt?" Paige asked.

"Will you's just get in here!" said Wyatt impatiently, pushing them into the sunroom.

"Who is he?" Phoebe asked again.

"He's my friend. His name's Chris." Wyatt replied.

He watched as Phoebe and Paige glanced at each other at the mention of his name. He knew what they were thinking. Either they were thinking about baby Chris because of the name or...they were figuring out in their minds who he really was. That was doubtful though. They didn't know enough about him yet.

"What happened to him?" Paige asked.

"His foster dad is what happened." Wyatt said.

"What! Is foster dad did that? How the hell he became a foster parent in the first place is a bloody mystery if he does that to kids!" Paige exclaimed angrily. Her experience as a Social Worker made her feel much more strongly about the situation.

"Shhh! Will you keep your voices down, he'll hear you!" said Piper.

"So what are we going to do with him?" asked Phoebe keeping her voice down.

Piper looked at Wyatt and he looked back at her pleadingly. She sighed.

"Okay he can stay." she said giving. Wyatt smiled gratefully.

"Thanks mom, you won't regret it I promise." said Wyatt. _You definitely won't regret it._

"On one condition though," Piper began. "He sleeps in your room with you. Got it?"

Wyatt nodded. "That's fine, I don't mind at all."

"Okay that's settled then. You go tell him whilst I talk with your aunts." said Piper.

Wyatt went through to the living room where Chris was still sitting. He was sitting, staring glassy-eyed straight ahead of him.

"Hey Chris." Wyatt said gently, sitting down beside him.

Chris didn't even acknowledge that he was there, all he did was blink and continue to stare straight ahead.

"Chris, I understand that your ups-

"You don't understand." Chris cut in.

"Okay, but I know that it must be upsetting for you."

"But you don't understand." Chris said, tears gathering in his eyes again. "You don't understand what it's like...to be abused by someone that's meant to take care of you..."

Wyatt didn't say anything for a moment. He was shocked. So it had been going on for a while... It suddenly all made sense. All those bruises he'd come to school with hadn't been because he'd been in a fight with another pupil...it was because his foster father abused him...

"You're right. I don't understand what it's like. But there's something that I know for sure and that's that I'm going to do everything I can to help you Chris. Everything."

"There's nothing you can do."

"Of course there is! Mom says you can stay here tonight. You can bunk in with me in my room, I'm sure we've got an air bed in the attic somewhere. Then if we tell everyone who you really are now-

"No. I don't want them to know, not right now anyway." Chris said, looking at Wyatt for the first time since he'd come back in.

"Chris think about it. If we tell them who you are then you can come and live here permanently. You won't have to go near that Rob ever again! Your social worker can't stop you from being with your real family, my aunt Paige has told me all about the system. She knows how it works."

"I want to get to know them first." said Chris, going back to staring straight ahead of him.

"Why? They can know who you are and you can get to know them at the same time."

"You don't get it." said Chris looking back at him again. "They're strangers to me and I'm a stranger to them. You've had all these years to build up your relationships with them, you know almost everything about each other but I...I have to start from scratch. We don't know anything about each other. Members of a family should."

"But that's none of your faults! You were kidnapped, we haven't seen you for thirteen years. How were you's meant to build up relationships when none of us were sure if you were even still alive?"

"Wyatt I'm not going to argue about this. I don't want them to know right now and you, as my brother, should respect my decision." Chris said looking straight into his eyes.

Wyatt hesitated, trying to think of a way to argue his point further but he gave in and sighed. "Fine. But we have to tell them some time okay?"

Chris nodded. "Yea, I know."

Wyatt watched for a moment as Chris tried to wipe away some of the blood with the back of his hand.

"We should get you cleaned up." Wyatt said, getting up and he gestured for Chris to follow him.

They climbed the stairs. As they climbed, Chris looked at the pictures on the walls. There was lots of children playing or with their arms around each others shoulders. There were lots of girls, around 6 of them and only one boy who he assumed was Wyatt. He wondered if those girls were his sisters or maybe his cousins. He saw other photos of people, he had no clue who they were. They weren't pictures of any of the women downstairs. There were pictures of them too. And three men who he assumed were their husbands. He wondered which one was his dad...He already knew that the woman who had asked who'd been at the door was his mother since Wyatt called her mom. She was beautiful, just like he'd imagined...

"It's this room here." Wyatt said pushing open a door revealing a bathroom.

He gestured with his hand for Chris to sit down on the toilet seat. He took the cloth that was hanging over the side of the sink and ran it under the hot water tap. He rung it out so it was just damp and knelt down in front of Chris. He started on his head wound, wiping the blood away. As he learnt too hard, he hurt him and Chris took in a sharp breath, turning his head to the side.

"Hold still!" Wyatt said impatiently, using his hand to turn his head back to the front.

"Your hurting me!" Chris said back through gritted teeth.

"I'll be more gentle okay so will you stop moving your head please?"

Chris sat still, looking at Wyatt as he wiped the blood away. "I could have done it myself you know."

"Clean yourself up a lot do you?" Wyatt asked, glancing at Chris before concentrating on his task again.

Chris didn't say anything and looked away.

"I'll take that as a yes." said Wyatt looking back at him before he got up to rinse the cloth.

Chris didn't say anything, deciding just to stay silent.

"Why didn't you tell anyone earlier?" Wyatt asked, walking back over with the now cleaner cloth and kneeling down again.

"I was scared." Chris said simply, averting his gaze.

"Why did you decide to tell me tonight then?" Wyatt asked as he dabbed gently under his nose.

"I'd had enough." said Chris. "He really scared me tonight. He's never been as violent as that before."

"Well it's good that you came here. My aunt Paige will make sure your Social Worker takes you away from Rob." said Wyatt.

"So is she still a Social Worker?" Chris asked, curious about his aunt.

"No, she left that job before I was even born." Wyatt said. (A/N At least I think she did!)

There was a small silence then Wyatt decided to ask him something that'd been on his mind. "Why did you run away today?"

Chris swallowed before answering. "I was scared that...they'd start hitting me too."

"But they'd never do that. My parents, I mean our parents, are two of the nicest people you'll ever know, especially dad."

"You don't understand." Chris said, looking at him. "Every single foster home I've been in, they all started hitting me. Well except one but that's a different story."

"What happened in that one?" Wyatt asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." Chris snapped.

"Okay." said Wyatt slowly. "Look, I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with foster care but I can assure you that our parents won't ever hit you."

"But there must be a reason that all those other people did. It must be something about me." Chris said, tears gathering in his eyes. He looked down.

"Chris look at me." Wyatt said, putting down the cloth and lifting Chris's chin with his hand. "It is not your fault okay? All those people were sick and twisted to want to hurt you. You did nothing wrong."

Chris nodded, the tears rolling down his face. Wyatt felt so helpless, watching him hurt so badly on the inside. He felt tears prickle his eyes at the thought of it. He leant forward, gently pulling Chris into a hug.

Chris stiffened for a moment but then he found that he didn't mind Wyatt hugging him. It actually made him feel kind of safe. He relaxed, wrapping his arms around Wyatt's back and putting his head on the shoulder. He'd tried his best before to hold as much of his emotions in as he could but now he let it all out. He sobbed into Wyatt's shoulder, letting out all the hurt he'd bottled up for so long.

"Shhh it's okay." Wyatt whispered gently to him, rubbing soothing circles on his back. "You're okay, I'm here. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you ever again."

Through the crying Chris managed to say. "You promise?"

Wyatt nodded, one stray tear escaping from his eye.

"I promise."

* * *

Piper watched Wyatt walk into the living room where Chris was still sitting and when she was sure he was talking to him she turned to her sisters. 

"So how long are you going to let him stay?" asked Phoebe.

Piper sighed. "I don't know. I don't want to let him stay the night and then just throw him out tomorrow. Not after what he's been through."

Paige nodded. "I'm going to make a complaint to the Social Services and get him taken out of that home. He can't stay there if the man is abusing him."

"What'll happen to him then?" asked Piper.

"He'll either be put in a Care Home or they'll find another foster family for him." Paige answered.

"What about his real family?" Piper asked.

"Well they're either dead, they don't want him or the lifestyle they have is not the right environment for a kid to be brought up in." said Paige.

"Well he can stay here for a couple of days till all that's sorted out." said Piper. "That okay with you two?"

"Yea it's fine with me." said Paige.

"What about you Pheebs?" Piper asked.

Phoebe was looking over at Chris and didn't answer her.

"Phoebe?" Piper tried again but Phoebe still didn't answer. "Phoebe!"

Phoebe jumped and looked over at her. "What?"

"Are you okay with Chris staying a couple of days till we sort the Social Services thing out?" Piper asked again.

"Yea sure." said Phoebe dismissively and she went back to looking at Chris.

Piper rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Uh Phoebe, your gonna freak him out, staring at him like that." said Paige.

"Yea, why exactly are you so interested in him anyway?" Piper asked.

"He just..." Phoebe began. "Don't you guys think he looks a lot like the other Chris?"

"Future Chris?" Paige questioned.

"Yea." said Phoebe nodding.

Paige and Piper looked over at him too.

"Yea I guess he does." said Paige tilting her head sideways as she looked at him.

Phoebe's eyes widened and she turned around, looking pointedly at the both of them. Piper realised what she was meaning and sighed.

"Phoebe no." she said shaking her head.

"What?" Phoebe said. "Think about it Piper, he looks like the other Chris, his name is Chris-

"That Chris is in foster care." Piper cut in. "Me and Leo did not hand Chris over to the Social Services."

"Yea but maybe his kidnappers did!"

"Why would they do that?" Piper said.

"I don't know!" said Phoebe. "But it is possible!"

"Phoebe." Piper said shaking her head at her younger sister.

"Piper." Phoebe retorted, raising her eyebrows.

"Okay guys, just stop for a minute." said Paige. "Let's not argue about who he is for now okay?"

"But it's so obvious who he is!" Phoebe exclaimed.

"No it's not!" Piper said. "All you have to go by is his name."

"And his looks." said Phoebe. "_And_ he looks the same age he would be now."

"Okay guys, I've got an idea." said Paige, cutting in before the argument could continue. "Why don't we find out more stuff about him and _then _we can decide properly if he's our Chris or not?"

Piper and Phoebe glanced at each other, theirs arms crossed.

"Fine." said Phoebe.

"Fine." said Piper.

Paige gave a sigh of relief. "Okay good. Now why don't we go introduce ourselves-

"And ask him some questions!" Phoebe cut in.

"No." said Paige giving her a pointed look. "And make him feel comfortable. We'll have to show him where he's sleeping, tell him what we're going to do with the situation and all of that stuff."

Phoebe sighed. "Alright then."

"Come on." said Paige and turned away from each other to go into the living room. They gasped.

"They're gone!" said Paige stating the obvious.

"Do you think Wyatt would have took him to see the book?" Phoebe asked worriedly, looking at Piper.

Anger washed over Piper's face as she contemplated what Phoebe had just said. She marched towards the stairs. "If he's took Chris anywhere near that book I will personally strangle him!"

She jogged up the stairs and her sisters quickly followed her. She stalked down the hall towards the stairs leading to the attic but stopped abruptly when she heard the sound of crying coming from somewhere. She gestured to her sisters to be quiet and listened closely. The crying was coming from the bathroom. She crept silently towards the room. The door was slightly ajar and she pushed it open a little further so she could poke her head inside. She looked in and the last of her anger completely vanished when she saw Wyatt hugging Chris with Chris crying into his shoulder. She felt a burst of sadness for the boy and she took her head back out, looking at her sisters.

"Should I go in?" she asked them quietly.

"Maybe it'd be best if you leave them for now." Paige whispered.

Piper nodded. "Okay let's go downstairs."

They walked back down the stairs and sat down in the living room.

"They obviously have some sort of connection." said Phoebe. "You know, like a _brotherly _connection."

"Phoebe, can it." said Piper.

"I'm just saying." said Phoebe, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair.

They sat in silence for ten minutes, each deep in their own thoughts. Just then they heard footsteps descending the stairs and they looked up to see Wyatt and Chris. The wounds on Chris's head and face were clean now. Wyatt and Chris sat down in the living room beside them.

"Everything okay boys?" Piper asked and they both nodded.

"Hi I'm Phoebe. Wyatt's aunt." said Phoebe abruptly, waving one hand at Chris.

"Hi." Chris said back quietly. "I'm Chris."

"I'm Paige, Wyatt's other aunt." said Paige.

Chris nodded politely and gave her a small smile. "Hi."

"And I'm Wyatt's mom." said Piper. "My name's Piper."

Chris looked at her. Piper...what a nice name...

"Did you show Chris where he was sleeping?" Piper asked Wyatt.

"Yea. I'll get the air bed from the attic when we go up." said Wyatt.

"Good." said Piper.

She watched Chris for a moment as he sat looking down at his shoes. He looked a mixture of upset, nervous, confused and scared. She felt bad for him.

"Chris, we're going to get all this sorted out okay? We'll get in touch with your Social Worker and get you taken away from that guy-

"There's no point." said Chris, interrupting Piper. "She'll just put me in another crappy home."

"Obviously not cut out for the job." Paige muttered.

"Well we'll try anyway. It's better than you staying there. You can stay here until it's sorted out." said Piper.

"Thanks." said Chris smiling gratefully.

"No problem." said Piper smiling back.

He coughed and swallowed. He was so thirsty but even though these people seemed nice he was scared to ask them for a drink. Normally if he asked Rob for anything all he'd get was a punch in the face.

"Do you want a drink?" Piper asked, practically reading his mind.

"Uh yea. Thanks." said Chris.

"I'll get it." said Wyatt standing up. He gestured for Chris to do the same. "Come on, I'll show you the kitchen."

Chris stood up and followed him through. As he walked in he looked around the brightly lit kitchen. It was a lovely kitchen, 100 times better than the one he was used to, but it was the family touches that he noticed the most. The drawings held on to the fridge by magnets, the family photos dotted around, even the flowers with a card attached sitting on the window ledge.

"What do you want?" Wyatt asked as he looked in the fridge.

"Um, I don't mind." Chris said as he continued to look around the kitchen.

He walked over to the flowers and looked at the card. It read:

_Piper,_

_I've loved you since the first day I met you and I always will._

_Love, _

_Leo_

"Dad gave those to mom after they had a fight." said Wyatt coming over to stand beside him with a large bottle of orange fizzy pop in his hand. "He's quite a romantic guy really." Chris smiled.

"That's him there." said Wyatt pointing to a photograph on the wall.

It was a photo of a man with sandy coloured hair and green eyes and Piper. They were sitting on the couch in the living room, their arms around each other and their heads touching. They were smiling up at the camera. Chris walked closer to it, taking in every detail of his parents. He smiled at the photo.

Wyatt took a glass out of a cupboard and poured the juice into it. He handed the juice to Chris.

"Thanks." said Chris taking a gulp of it and feeling the cool orange liquid soothe his dry throat.

"I'm not actually sure why we've still got this stuff. Mom was going to throw it out cause it makes the cousins go wild with the sugar." said Wyatt putting the bottle back in the fridge.

"So all those girls are your cousins?" Chris asked.

"Our cousins." Wyatt corrected. "And yes they are. Prue, Melinda and Kanira are aunt Phoebe and uncle Coop's kids and Bethany, Patty and Lucy are aunt Paige and uncle Henry's kids. "Prue's the youngest, she's five, Melinda's six, Kanira is nine, Bethany's seven, Patty is ten and Lucy is seven."

"So you're the oldest out of the lot then." said Chris.

"Yea but you come in a close second." said Wyatt.

Chris looked at him and smiled slightly.

"Come on, we better go back through." said Wyatt.

"Um, is it okay if I stay in here a bit longer?" Chris asked, wanting to have a better look around.

"Yea...sure." said Wyatt slowly. "I'll just be through here." he left.

Chris sat down on one of the high stools positioned beside the marble topped island and looked around. He wondered what it would have been like to grow up in this house. What it would have been like to come down to this kitchen for his breakfast every morning or to spend time with his cousins and his brother. What it would have been like to be read bedtime stories by his dad or to be comforted by his mom when he had nightmares. It was the simple things like that that he longed for the most.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there just thinking but he was snapped out of his thoughts by a little girl with shoulder-length brown hair stepping into the kitchen. She looked up at him.

"Hi I'm Prue." she said in the innocent way that all five year olds do.

"Hi." said Chris. "I'm Chris."

He smiled slightly at her and she smiled back. Her hair was in a wild mess from rolling around in her bed and she had light pink pyjamas on. She walked further into the kitchen and climbed up onto the stool opposite him.

"I'm five now." she said. "It was my birthday last week."

"Well happy late birthday." said Chris with a small smile and she smiled brightly backat him.

"Is it your birthday soon?" Prue asked.

"Not really. My birthday is in November." Chris replied.

"That's near Christmas time." said Prue. "I like Christmas. Rudolph is my favourite reindeer, who's yours?"

"Uh...I like Comet." said Chris.

Prue nodded in agreement. "Yea I like him too. Rudolph is cool cause of his red nose though."

Chris nodded and smiled.

"Do you believe in Santa?" Prue asked.

Chris knew that she probably did so he went along with it. "Yea, do you?"

"Yea!" Prue said enthusiastically nodding her head.

"So what do you want from Santa this year?" Chris asked her.

Prue looked thoughtful for a moment then her face lit up. "One of the giant Miss Kitty teddys!"

Chris smiled again. "You like Miss Kitty then?"

"Yea I watch the cartoon everyday after school! She's my favourite!" Prue exclaimed.

Chris almost laughed. She was getting so excited over a cartoon character.

"What do you want for Christmas?" Prue asked him.

"Uh..."Chris thought for a moment. "I don't really know."

"You should ask for some plasters." said Prue.

"What for?"

"For the sore bits on your face." said Prue innocently. "My mommy puts plasters on my sore bits when I fall."

"Maybe I'll do that." said Chris just to humour her.

"Does it hurt?" Prue asked looking at the wound on the side of his head.

"A little." Chris said.

"It looks really sore." said Prue. "Did you cry when you got it?"

"Not at first." said Chris.

"Did you cry later?"

"Yea a bit." said Chris.

"Why?"

"I was a bit sad." Chris said, diluting the reason since she was just a small child, too young to understand.

"Oh. I cry when I'm sad too. You should drink hot chocolate when your sad though. Mommy gives it to me and she talks to me about why I'm sad and I feel a lot better."

Chris smiled. "Thanks, I'll remember that next time."

Prue smiled back at him happily.

"Prue!"

Chris and Prue turned their heads to the doorway and saw Phoebe standing there with her hands on her hips.

"What are doing up young lady?"

"I wanted to talk to the boy mommy." said Prue.

Phoebe sighed. "Okay, back up to bed."

"But mommy-

"Now!"

Prue pouted and climbed down off the stool.

"Bye." she said sadly to Chris, waving her small hand at him as her mom led her out of the kitchen.

"Bye." said Chris smiling at her and waving back.

He sat for another ten minutes and then sighed, standing up as he did so. He walked out of the kitchen and through to the living room carrying his juice through with him.

"Hey, we heard you were having chat with Prue." said Wyatt as he sat down.

Chris nodded. "Yea she came in and started talking to me. Sorry, I didn't think to come and tell you she was up." he added looking at Phoebe who had come in just before him.

"No it's okay don't worry about it. She's naturally curious." Phoebe said.

Chris smiled. "Yea I noticed."

"She gets it from her mother." said Piper and they all laughed.

For the next couple of minutes they chatted to each other about non important things. Chris was actually enjoying himself, just hanging out with them and not worrying about anything. However, that didn't last very long.

Suddenly a swirl of what appeared to be blue orbs appeared in the middle of the room and the man from the photo in the kitchen appeared. Chris's eyes widened in shock at he shot out of his seat.

"Oh my god Leo!" Piper exclaimed.

"What?" Leo said oblivious to the fact that Chris was in the room. Then he saw him and his eyes widened.

"Oh." was all he said with a shocked expression on his face.

Chris started backing away. What the hell was going on? And more importantly what had that man just done?

"Chris wait." said Wyatt also standing up.

Chris continued to back away. He was seriously freaked out at the moment! He didn't want to listen to what Wyatt had to say. He just had to get out this house...

He made a break for the front door. He heard them all calling after him but he ignored them. How could they expect him to stay after seeing that? How could they not be freaked out by something like that as well? As he ran through the foyer he heard a strange noise behind him and Wyatt shouted.

"Chris look out!"

Chris spun around to see what Wyatt was shouting about and gasped as he saw a ball of electricity flying towards him. He put his hands up to protect his face and...the ball froze. Chris stared at it in shock. Out the corner of his eye he could see everybody else staring at him, in shock as well. He was faintly aware of a man that hadn't been there before standing as frozen as a statue at the bottom of the stairs.

He backed away slowly, still staring at the ball. What the hell was that! He saw Piper flick her wrists at the man and he blew up. Chris was snapped out of his stupor at that and he jumped back.

"What the hell!" he exclaimed looking where the man had just been.

Piper realised what she'd just done and turned to him.

"Chris no, he was a demon!" she said trying to explain. She hadn't even thought about it as she blew the demon up, she did it too often. Then she realised what she'd just said.

"A what!" Chris exclaimed, starting to back away again.

Suddenly before anyone could reply, the energy ball unfroze and went flying towards Chris's head. Everybody gasped and Chris's eyes widened. He dropped to his knees just in time and the energy ball whizzed over his head, hitting the front door. He scrambled quickly to his feet and without hesitation, ran to the door.

"Chris no wait!" Wyatt said as Chris opened the door.

He was behind him in a flash and used his hand to close the door again. He secretly used telekinesis to keep it shut. Chris tried to pull it open again but Wyatt kept it shut. He turned to face Wyatt angrily.

"Let me out!"

Wyatt shook his head. "No. I already let you runaway once today, I'm not going to let you do it again."

Chris tried to pull the door open again but Wyatt held it firmly shut. He tried again but still Wyatt overpowered him.

"Chris we can explain. Wyatt let the door go." said Piper as her, her sisters and Leo quickly made their way over.

"No mom, he'll just runaway!" said Wyatt turning to look at her. He paused for a moment then seemed to make something up in his mind. "Look we have something to tell you-

His hand loosened the grip on the door and Chris took the chance to yank it open. Wyatt spun around and reached out as Chris tried to get out the door. He grabbed him and pulled him back through the door , kicking the door closed as he went.

"Let me go!" Chris exclaimed, struggling against him.

"No you are not going anywhere until we tell them who you are!" Wyatt said holding him tightly.

"Wyatt what are you talking about?" Piper asked.

"Mom look at him!" Wyatt exclaimed, looking at his mom. "He looks like you and dad, he has the power to freeze just like you, his birthday is on November 15th, he's fourteen years old and he was found on a doorstep when he was 11 months old! Add it up!" Wyatt said as he struggled to hold on to Chris who was fighting to be let go more violently.

Realisation washed over Piper and Leo's faces as they looked Chris Wyatt confirmed their thoughts.

"He's Chris. The same Chris we lost 13 years ago."

Shock was the main emotion evident on the faces of the four adults. Chris still struggled against Wyatt but he wasn't trying as hard as he was before. Tears were making their way down his face but he kept his head bowed so that hopefully no-one would see.

"Oh my god." Piper whispered and tears started rolling down her cheeks as she looked at him.

Leo looked at him him wide eyed. He couldn't believe it...

Chris couldn't stand the atmosphere any more. He had to get away. He suddenly grabbed hold of Wyatt's left arm with both hands, jumped and bent forward. Wyatt was flipped over his shoulder and he landed painfully on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Wyatt coughed and gasped for breath and Chris took this chance to get the door open again. Piper's eyes widened.

"Chris don't, please!"

She jumped forwards and grabbed hold of his wrists, pulling him back.

"Don't go please." she whispered desperately.

He looked up at her, the tears falling on to his t-shirt. She was in a similar state.

"It's really you." Piper whispered. Her face crumpled and fresh tears started running down her face. "I've missed you so much!" she said, her voice starting to break.

She pulled him into a tight hug. He froze, staring straight ahead as he looked over her shoulder and with his arms by side. After a minute or so he swallowed and brought his arms shakily up, wrapping them around her. She hugged him tighter. Fresh tears made their way down his face too and he buried his face into her shoulder.

Phoebe and Paige helped Wyatt up. He stood in between them and watched his mom and Chris. Leo swallowed and walked towards them. Piper turned her head and saw him and moved to the side a little, taking one arm away from around Chris. He stood beside her and put one arm around her back and the other around Chris so that Chris was in the middle and getting hugged by the both of them at the same.

Wyatt could see Piper crying and he knew that Chris was too. His dad didn't look like he'd be able to hold out without bursting into tears for much longer either. But he knew that they were happy. Chris had found his parents that he'd never met and his mom and dad had found the son they'd loved and lost thirteen years ago. He watched as Piper turned her head and kissed Chris on the side of his head and he smiled.

Even though it'd been hard to get Chris in the house, to try and keep his mouth shut to his parents when he saw Chris was suffering just because Chris had wanted him to, he knew it was worth it. Because he'd filled in the part that had been missing from the family and the hearts of his parents, his aunts and even his own.

He'd found his brother. He'd brought him home.

* * *

Yes I know, it's a soppy ending but come on, you gotta love 'em! Sooo did you like the chapter? Did you hate it? Did you LOVE it? Well you know what, I'll never know unless you review so I suggest that you click the little button on the left and write one! Go on! It'd make my day! Oh and remember, I LOVE long reviews, hint hint...BUT if your not the long review giving type then I guess it's ok if it's not long...but I do like them... ;-) 

Oh and the hug with Piper, Leo and Chris was meant to be like the way the sisters hug, like a three way hug, but I don't think I wrote it very clearly!


	6. A Shocking Discovery

A/N Hey everyone! Sorry for the lapse in an update but her it is now! I hope you enjoy! This isn't the most eventful chapter but it does include a pretty long convo with Chris, Leo and Piper and Chris learns a little more about magic. Also a pretty big shock at the end. And don't go scrolling straight down to the end to read it! ;-) ANYway, thanks so so much to everyone that reviewed! I love you guys!

Oh and you may be wondering why I haven't just put a line instead of the stupid "AHEWAHEWAHEW" thing but the line wouldn't appear when I clicked the button so we'll have to settle for that!

AHEWAHEWAHEWAHEWAHEWAHEWAHEW

He was dreaming. He _knew_ he was dreaming. But he couldn't wake up. He wanted to, god he really wanted to. The nightmare was surrounding him, suffocating him...

_He was eight years old again, sitting at the kitchen table of the Watson household. Grace was towering above him ripping a picture he'd taken half an hour to draw for her into pieces whilst shouting at him how useless he was...he was in the bed, screaming and sobbing in pain as Barry raped him...Rob hitting him, choking him against the wall...kids teasing him and pushing him around in the Care Homes...Marcus about to stab him...Rob storming into the bathroom, then beating him senseless...an energy ball flying towards his head...magic...a demon...the feeling of hot blood seeping through his hair...the nights he spent crying for his real mom and dad...Barry molesting him...Jack Watson shaking him violently...his first foster parents when he was four years old, locking him in the dark cupboard because he'd wet the bed due to a horrific nightmare..._

The images flashed through his mind and Chris tossed around on the air bed, his teeth gritted and his eyes screwed shut as he tried to force himself awake. He struggled like this for a couple more minutes before he finally jolted awake, a loud gasp escaping his mouth. He was drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead. He sat staring straight ahead for a moment breathing in a panicked sort of way. It was still dark outside but the room was illuminated by the streams of moonlight coming in from the window. Chris listened to the unnaturally loud snoring coming from his brother for a moment before he shakily got to his feet and stepped out of the room and into the hall. He walked down the hall to the stairs, heading to the kitchen so he could get a glass of water.

Piper and Leo, his parents, had insisted that he stay the night and then they'd sort out the finer details the next day. Chris wasn't one to complain of course. After the reunion with his parents, he'd learnt that what Wyatt had said about them being nice had been true. For now at least...

_Stop thinking like that! Just put your trust in this one thing will you!_

After his parents had finally managed to tear themselves away from him, he'd been pounced on by Phoebe and Paige who had then proceeded to hug and kiss him excitedly. This lasted for around five minutes before Wyatt finally managed to save him. Wyatt had then hugged him tightly. Chris realised that it had went just like it had done in the dream he'd had. But…unlike in the dream he'd felt that familiar sick twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach when they touched him. Not so much Piper and her sisters, just really Leo and a little bit Wyatt. Even when he and Wyatt had been hugging in the bathroom he'd been lying to himself when he'd thought that it hadn't at least slightly bothered him. Feelings like that were just too hard to shake off no matter how comfortable he was around the person.

Even though he knew it was unfair to think that way, he knew the uncomfortable feeling was just with Leo and Wyatt because they were male. Ever since Barry raped him he'd found it immensely difficult to trust men of any age. With women he had it engraved in his mind that even though he'd been treated badly by women like Grace etc in the past, none of those bad experiences compared to that traumatic event with Barry. He felt deep inside that a woman would never be able to hurt him like Barry did.

Even with these feelings however he'd hugged them back because, after all, they were his family. His _real _family, not just a temporary one until he was shoved into someone else's care. These people really did care about him. At least he got the impression that they did, what with all the crying and hugging and kissing etc. He just hoped and prayed that they'd stay that way.

Chris crept down the stairs carefully nearly stumbling down them as a feeling of nausea washed over him. He shook it off and continued his way down the stairs, wincing when some of them creaked under his weight. He didn't want to wake up the whole household on his first night of staying there. He got to the bottom of the stairs and made his way through the darkness, with his arms outstretched in front of him, to the kitchen. When he finally managed to find his way (the house was still somewhat strange to him) he flicked on the light and walked over to the sink, turning the cold water tap on. He began searching through the cupboards for a glass which took him around 5 minutes. He filled the glass with the cool water and took a few large gulps. He felt so cold but as he put the glass down and splashed his face from the water from the tap the water felt icy against his skin. As he dried his face with the dish towel he noticed he was shivering too.

_Probably from the nightmare. It's nothing..._

He picked up the glass again and walked over to the table, pulled out one of the chairs and collapsed into it. He was exhausted and the wound on his head was throbbing painfully under the bandage Piper had put on it before he'd went to bed but he didn't want to go back to sleep. The dream had been horrible, some of his worst memories flashing through his mind. He couldn't face going through that dream again. He took another gulp of the water, groaning slightly as he felt a pain in his throat. He hoped he wasn't coming down with something.

_That would suck._

He put the glass back on the table and placed his head in his hands, closing his eyes. He sat like that for a while until he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He snapped his head up and turned his upper body around so he could look. Leo was standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing up so late?" Leo asked with the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Or early I should say."

Chris stood up quickly. "I'm sorry I just-

Another wave of nausea hit him and he felt very light headed. He stumbled backwards. Leo strode forwards quickly, grabbing his arms.

"Whoa take it easy." he said gently, frowning in concern. He helped Chris sit back down in the chair. Chris took in a couple of deep breaths.

"I'm okay." he said. He looked up at Leo. "I'm sorry about being up-

"No it's okay." said Leo. "Don't worry about it, I'm not going to give you in trouble."

"I didn't mean to wake anybody." said Chris looking guilty.

"You didn't wake me." said Leo. "I sometimes wake up at odd hours of the morning."

Chris smiled and looked down.

"Hey you two."

Leo turned around and Chris looked past him. Piper was standing there.

"This is pretty early to get up is it not?" she asked with a smile.

Leo smiled and looked back at Chris. "We uh, couldn't sleep."

"Hmm." was all Piper said, the smile still on her face and she walked past Leo into the kitchen. She walked over to the kettle and flicked on the switch. As she waited for the water to boil she walked back to the table and sat down in the seat opposite Chris. Leo sat down beside her.

"How are you feeling?" Piper asked Chris

"I'm okay." said Chris. "I had a nightmare, that's all."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Piper asked gently.

Chris cleared his throat, looking at his hands. "It was just...bad memories flashing through my mind really."

Leo and Piper frowned and looked at their youngest son in concern.

"My youngest son..." Leo thought.

If he was being honest, he'd never thought he would have saw Chris again after he was kidnapped. Obviously he'd held on to that hope that he would but after around 8 years that hope had started to fade away...

Piper got up again as the water in the kettle came to a boil. She took three mugs out of the cupboard and put them on the counter.

"Tea, coffee or hot chocolate?" she asked, looking at Chris.

"Um...hot chocolate please." Chris said.

Piper nodded and made tea for her and Leo, heated up some milk in the microwave and made the hot chocolate. Chris watched her as she added some honey and cinnamon to it.

"My special recipe." she said with a smile, handing the hot mug to Chris. "Be careful, it's hot."

"Thanks Piper." Chris said without really thinking.

Piper glanced at him for a moment. "You can call me mom you know Chris."

Chris looked up at her. "Oh...yea I know. Sorry, It's just I've never called anyone mom before. I'm not used to it."

"It's okay honey." said Piper. "You can call me mom when you're ready."

"Yea, same with calling me dad." said Leo.

Chris smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

"No problem." said Piper, handing Leo his mug of tea. She sat down in the seat next to Leo again.

Chris took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was delicious. He didn't want to say because he knew he'd sound weird but he'd never had hot chocolate before. His past foster parents had never bothered to give him anything nice to eat or drink.

"Can I ask you's something?" Chris asked all of a sudden looking at them.

"Sure, go ahead." said Leo as Piper nodded.

"When I was kidnapped," Chris began quietly. "Did you...did you try to find me?"

Leo and Piper looked at him, quite taken aback at the question. Piper's eyes widened.

"Of course we did." she said, wondering how Chris could even think otherwise. She got off her chair and pulled it over so she was sitting right in front of Chris. She took hold of Chris's hands.

"Honey, me, your dad, you aunts, your uncles...we all tried everything we could think of to find you." Piper said.

Leo nodded in agreement. "We didn't stop until around four years ago."

Piper turned around and glared at him.

"_Why would you say that you stupid...urgh!_" Piper thought angrily.

"You stopped?" Chris asked looking up at him, his eyes starting to fill with tears. "Why?"

Leo felt like his heart was breaking just looking at him. He realised that saying what he'd said had been a big mistake and all he'd was accomplished was making Chris more upset.

"It had been 10 years Chris. We didn't even know if you were still alive." said Leo, desperately trying to make him understand.

"But I was." Chris said, trying to stop the tears from falling. "I was only a couple of blocks away."

"Sweetie," Piper began, turning his attention back to her. "If we had even a single inkling as to where you were we would have rushed over there in a second."

Chris looked down, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Honey, we'd never ever just give up on you." said Piper giving his hands a gentle squeeze. "What Leo meant was, we were juggling all these things in our lives and it became harder to search for you with the same ferocity that we had had for the past ten years. We still searched for you but just not to the same extent of what we used to."

Chris looked up at her. "Why didn't you use….you know….magic to find me?" he asked, struggling slightly to use the word.

The whole magic thing was still a shock to him. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that his family had magic powers or that he did for that matter. What was it that Wyatt had said again?...The power to freeze or something…

_Well that explains some of those strange incidents from when I was kid at least…_

But witches and demons and magic powers were things you read in story books! They weren't real!

_But they are! I saw it happen before my own eyes!_

He'd always imagined witches as old woman with green skin and warts on their noses and loud cackily laughs. You know, the stereotypical witch that was in that old film The Wizard of Oz or was featured on Halloween cards. Definitely not women like Piper and Phoebe and Paige. And Wyatt was a witch too he guessed…or was he a wizard? He wasn't sure. Memories of the Harry Potter flashed through his mind at that. Wizards male, witches female right? But it was very possible that he was wrong though. Those things were fictional after all.

Speaking of fictional…Demons were the last thing that he thought were real. They were as real to him as Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy. But now that he'd saw one…well…taken aback was a bit of an understatement. He wondered what else was real that he'd believed where fictional…

"_Mr Sandman." Chris thought to himself. "Or fairies! Now THAT would be something worth seeing!"_

He had to admit, out of the whole freakiness of the whole magic thing and the witches and the demons, he found it pretty cool to have a power. And the power to freeze out of everything! He could imagine the fun he could have with that…._if _he figured out how to control it that is…

"Of course." said Piper, snapping him out of his thoughts. "We tried scrying, spells, potions, sensing…everything we could think of. None of it worked for some strange and extremely infuriating reason."

"Scrying? Sensing?" Chris questioned, forgetting about his upset for a moment. This magic thing was _way_ to interesting to ignore.

"Oh right." said Piper. "We still haven't explained the whole magic thing have we?"

Chris shook his head and Piper sighed, looking over at Leo. Leo pulled his chair over to sit beside her.

"Where do we begin?..." Piper wondered.

Chris waiting as she thought about how to put what she was trying to saying. She let out a deep breath and looked at him.

"Ok well, we're a family of witches." she began. "We come from a long line of witches-

"A very powerful line of witches." Leo cut in. "Halliwell is the most known name in the magical world."

"Sooo…I'm a witch?" Chris asked.

"Yes" said Piper.

"Surely you had some idea?" Leo questioned.

Chris shook his head. "No not really. Weird stuff has happened before but I never imagined it was something like this."

"What kind of weird stuff?" Piper asked.

"Well I've frozen Rob before by accident when he was about to hit me and once when I was running from some boys one minute I was running down the street and the next I was a couple of blocks away."

"Orbed." Leo said simply.

"What?"

"You most probably orbed." said Leo.

"What's that?"

"It's what I did when I appeared in the livingroom. I'm an Elder." said Leo.

Chris raised his eyebrows and Piper sighed.

"Okay there is so much to explain and it's too late at night. Why don't you go to bed and we'll talk about it tomorrow…or later today I should say." she said.

Chris opened his mouth to argue but Leo cut him off.

"She's right Chris. You need to get some sleep."

Chris closed his mouth looking clearly disappointed. "Okay."

He stood up and started to walk out the kitchen.

"Chris wait." said Leo, standing up.

Chris turned around. "Yea?"

"Let me heal you first."

Chris looked confused as Leo walked over to him and placed his hands an inch over his body and face. The golden glow appeared and Chris's eyes widened in bewilderment as he felt the warmth flow through him. To his amazement the niggling pain he'd constantly felt since his last beating disappeared as did the visible injuries such as the bruises and cuts on his face. Even the nausea disappeared. When Leo finished Chris didn't say anything for a moment as he felt his face with his hands.

"How did you do that?" he asked, amazed.

"Magic." Leo said with a smile, his eyes twinkling merrily.

Chris smiled back, looking at him in wonder as if he was the best person in the world. Leo felt a feeling of incredible warmth, not by magic but by knowing that it'd been him that had put that smile on his obviously troubled sons face.

"Thanks…dad." Chris said and he turned around again and walked out the kitchen.

Leo stood for a moment and then turned around to face Piper, grinning giddily.

"He called me dad." he said happily with a glowing smile on his face.

Piper smiled back just as brightly and nodded. She nodded her head at the doorway.

"Let's go sit in the living room." she said.

Leo nodded and stood up with his mug of tea in his hand. They walked through to the living room and sat down on the couch after Piper had switched on the light.

"I keep thinking about the demon attack." said Leo after a couple of moments.

"Well demon attacks are normal so it's normal that it attacked." said Piper.

"No it's not." Leo cut in with a puzzled expression on his face.

"What?" questioned Piper looking at him.

"Well…why would they attack Chris and not you and your sisters or Wyatt?" Leo pondered. "I mean, they couldn't possibly know that Chris is a Halliwell."

"So? Demon's kill anyone no matter what they think their second name is." said Piper.

"Not necessarily. As soon as he shimmered in he went for Chris even though we were closer and right in front of him. I think it was planned."

"But how would they know about him?" Piper asked, puzzled.

"Everyone knows now."

Piper and Leo turned quickly in the direction of the voice and stood up when they saw who it was. There stood an Elder.

"Orion" said Leo quietly with a small frown.

"What do you mean everybody knows?" Piper asked narrowing her eyes.

"The whole magical community has felt the power surge, including the inhabitants of the underworld." said Orion

"What power surge? From Chris?" Piper questioned.

"Not just from him alone." said Orion "From the reunion between him and Wyatt."

"Why would that cause a power surge?" Leo asked.

Orion sighed. "Centuries before the birth of Melinda Warren a prophecy was made by a very wise woman. She didn't have the power of premonition but she did read the stars, runes etc." He cleared his throat.

"I'm not the best at being cryptic but it goes something like this:

Two Brothers Born from Light

Of Charmed Blood and Angel Heritage

Shall Vanquish the Forces of Darkness

And become Evils Bane

Leading Light into Prosperity

These Twice Blessed Children will be the most Powerful Witches

This World will ever see."

Piper and Leo took a minute or so to let the information to settle in.

"But that doesn't mean it's them." said Piper.

"It all fits Piper. Think about it. Charmed blood, you're a Charmed One, Angel Heritage, Leo is an Elder and they're brothers."

"So…that was why he was kidnapped wasn't it?" Piper more stated than asked.

Orion didn't do or say anything for a moment but he then nodded. "Yes."

"Why didn't I know about this prophecy?" Leo asked with a frown. "I'm an Elder too."

"You were hardly ever there at the time so we didn't bother telling you." Orion said simply.

"I was kind of preoccupied with other things." Leo said in his defence.

"Exactly." said Orion.

Leo frowned at him but Piper talked again before he could say anything.

"Why would demons kidnap him then put him in foster care? If they were trying to stop this prophecy from coming true then wouldn't they try to turn him evil or something? It doesn't make sense." she said.

"It wasn't demons that kidnapped him." said Orion.

"What? You know who did?" Leo exclaimed.

Orion nodded.

"Who? Warlocks? Hags? Goblins?" Piper asked.

"None of them." said Orion.

"Who then?" Piper asked getting very frustrated.

Orion looked into her eyes, not saying anything for a moment. Leo and Piper waited, possibilities of who he was going to say running through their minds. What he did say though, shocked them to the core.

"We did. And I'm here to take him back."

AHEWAHEWAHEWAHEWAHEWAHEW

Sooo was that shocking enough for ya's? ;-) Yay so it's finally revealed who took Chris! In the next chapter it will be revealed why they took him, why none of the magic the CO and Leo used to find Chris worked and will the Elders get Chris? You're gonna have to tune in next time to find out! And reviews make me happy and when I'm happy I write, so you get the picture ;-)

Oh and special thanks to jka1 who practically wrote the prophecy for me (I made a few tweeks) and also he gave me the name of the Elder cause I couldn't think of a name to suit him. Thank you jka1!

P.S. People reading "Memories of Christopher Perry" I will be working on updating it soon! I'm just gonna update TROWAC and MBML first which won't take me long, I promise:-)


	7. Run, Chris, Run!

A/N Hey everyone! I'm really sorry for the lapse in an update! I've been busy with other things but to show my dedication I've spent since 10:00pm till 4:30AM writing this chapter! So you know what, I really hope it was worth it and you's like it! Thanks to every single perosn that reviewed (even no signed ones) and there's only one more thing to say to you! Enjoy!

P.S. You know how Chris was born in a hospital? Well I've changed that! He was now born in the manor ok? Why? Cause I'm the author and I said so:-P

* * *

Two pairs of shocked eyes stared at Orion. They couldn't move or say anything. There was an incredible roaring in their eyes as they processed what the Elder had just told them. Piper could feel the rage building inside of her but Leo felt confused. He was angry of course but he couldn't understand. Elders were the paragon of all good. They wouldn't kidnap an innocent child. It wasn't like Chris was evil or anything, he was a good witch. It didn't make any sense. 

"You what?" Piper questioned her voice dangerously quiet.

"I'm here to take him back." Orion repeated.

"But why did you take him?" Leo asked. The confusion had washed away and all he felt was anger. Pure anger and hatred pumping through his veins. He managed to control himself for the moment being though. He wanted answers before he fried that Elders ass.

"Because of the prophecy." said Orion simply. He showed no emotion. No regret for what they did or what he was about to do.

"But the prophecy is good! It goes on about how good they are and how much evil they'll destroy!" Piper exclaimed. "Why would you want to stop that!"

"You don't understand."

"Damn right I don't understand!"

"We couldn't risk it." said Orion, keeping calm.

"Risk what?" Piper exclaimed again. Her temper was getting bigger and bigger.

"Risk them turning evil." Orion began. "Wyatt and Chris are very powerful. They both have very large amounts of concentrated power inside of them and that's alright for us because they're good. But if they turned evil, they'd be unstoppable. If they both tapped into the full extent of their powers, together they could destroy everything. And I mean everything."

"But we wouldn't let them turn evil!" Piper argued. "We'd protect them!"

"You can't protect them from everything Piper. The dark side can look very appealing to young witches. They both could be easily turned at this point especially since they were born in the manor."

"How was putting Chris in care gonna stop him from turning evil?" Leo asked before Piper could say anymore.

It was amazing they were managing to control their tempers at that point but they both knew that they needed answers.

"We didn't put him in Care to stop him from turning evil, we put him in care to separate him from Wyatt." said Orion. "They're unstoppable together so we thought if we separated them, then Chris would have no idea he was a witch and we'd hopefully be able to stop Wyatt if he was turned evil."

"But why foster care? Why couldn't you keep him 'Up There' or something?"

"Because we put him in care to eventually break him?"

Piper and Leo faltered for a moment.

"W-What is that supposed to mean?" Piper asked, her voice quite again.

"We cast a spell," Orion began. "A spell that made sure no matter what home he went to, whatever foster family he stayed with, he'd be abused. The purpose was so he'd eventually break, not bother about anything anymore, possibly even commit suicide. That way we wouldn't have to worry about 'The Twice Blessed Children' destroying the planet anymore. We deliberately blocked your magic as well so you wouldn't be able to find him no matter what you did. "

There was a pause as Piper and Leo stared at Orion, the information sinking in and burning into their subconscious. They could feel the anger and hatred flow through them like white hot poison. Piper's face contorted in anger.

"You son of a bitch!" she screamed.

She launched herself at him, forgetting all about her powers. She just wanted to get her hands around his neck and throttle him. She wanted to beat him and rip that bald head off his shoulders with her bare hands but most of all she wanted to make him feel the pain and suffering he and his kind had caused her youngest son.

Her plans were ruined however when Leo grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back as Orion took a hasty step back.

"Piper! Piper calm down!" Leo shouted, barely managing to be heard over her struggling and shouts of "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

Even though he wanted to do the exact same thing (and he probably would in due time) he wanted to know more. He had to know more.

But suddenly the sound of many pairs of feet came running down the stairs. Phoebe and Paige appeared, with Wyatt and…oh no.

"Chris get back upstairs now!" Leo shouted at his youngest son, who had just reached the bottom of the stairs with his aunts and brother.

It was too late though. Orion saw him and he disappeared in a cloud of orbs. Piper stopped shouting and spun around towards the foyer where her sisters and sons were standing. Suddenly the orbs reappeared behind Chris and Orion reformed.

"No!" Piper screamed as he grabbed Chris's arm.

Before he could orb out with him, she brought her hands up in a flash and flicked her wrists. Orion blew up in a blast of orbs and reformed near the front door of the manor. Suddenly six more clouds of orbs appeared and they reformed to reveal Elders in their usual robes.

"Chris run!" Leo shouted.

His son, he could see, was terrified and had no clue on what was going on. He looked like a rabbit caught in headlights and was frozen like a statue. The Elders all spotted him and made their way towards him. They raised their hands which crackled with electricity.

"No!" Piper shouted running towards him at the same time as Leo shouted his son's name.

Wyatt, realising the danger towards his younger brother, jumped forwards and grabbed his arms. He orbed them out just as the Elders shot the bolts of electricity. The bolts hit a vase behind where the two boys had been standing.

Piper felt the relief wash through her as she knew that her sons would be safe for now. She didn't have much time to contemplate that though as she and Leo began a particularly violent battle with the Elders. As the Elders had shot their lightening bolts, Leo had shot one of his own, hitting one of the female Elders on the shoulder and making her fall to the ground. Three of the Elders orbed out after Wyatt and Chris but another three came in their place to fight the sisters and Leo. Phoebe and Paige, who had been standing in a state of complete shock, started to help their sister and brother-in-law as lightening bolts flashed in all directions, taking chunks of plaster out of the walls and blasting many ornaments and photographs into oblivion. Not to mention the furniture, this was also receiving a hardcore battering.

Piper flicked her wrists at the Elders, hoping to freeze them but it didn't work. She just proceeded to blow them into clouds of orbs over and over again, the rage taking over her. Paige was busy orbing different heavy objects at them and Phoebe was…well Phoebe was busy dodging getting fried and putting in her two cents worth by dishing out a few of her karate moves once in a while. Leo was just going plain nuts and sending lightening bolts left, right and centre.

Any other time the sisters would have _loved _to attack the Elders and try and blow them up and orb furniture at them and kick them in the lower regions but now they were so focused on trying to protect Chris (even though Paige and Phoebe didn't know why) that they really couldn't enjoy it. There was just this urgent need to stop them from getting to the 14 year old that nothing else mattered and that was all they were focused on. As Piper continued to blow them up over and over again, she felt this horrible pang in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the three Elders that had orbed out after her sons.

She just hoped they'd be able to protect themselves until she, her sisters and Leo could get to them.

Meanwhile…

Wyatt and Chris reformed on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Chris stepped away from Wyatt as the dizziness from the orbing filled him but it soon passed. He looked at Wyatt with a panic stricken look in his eyes.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked, too shaken up to be bothered by the fact that they were hundreds of feet above ground.

"I don't know." Wyatt answered with the same look.

Before they could contemplate the situation more, the three Elders that had followed them orbed in. It was Wyatt they noticed first and as soon as they did they sent three lightening bolts at him which he ducked. He tried to grab Chris's hand to orb them out again but another lightening bolt thrown by the oldest Elder hit his arm and he let out an almost inaudible yelp of pain as he was thrown backwards and hit the side structure of the bridge. He heard Chris call his name frantically and he tried to push the fog out of brain and get up. He had to protect his brother since Chris had absolutely no idea how to use any of his powers. He just wanted to know why the Elders were after him though.

Chris backed away from the Elders. He was starting to have second thoughts about the coolness of magic. He was right on the edge now and he could feel the wind almost pushing him right off.

"Christopher we can either do this the hard way, or the easy way." said the Elder that had thrown the lightening bolt that had hit Wyatt.

"Come with us Christopher. If you come now we won't have to take drastic action." said the only female there.

Chris didn't want to know what drastic action was but he figured it was the same thing that happened to Wyatt except probably more final. However, he wanted to go with them even less so he shook his head.

"I don't want to come with you." he said.

"Don't be afraid." said the other Elder, a young male. "We'll only take you back to your foster home. You don't belong with the Halliwells."

"I don't want to go back there!" Chris exclaimed.

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice." said the oldest Elder.

The three stepped towards him and he watched them with fearful eyes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wyatt struggle to his hands and knees. He willed him to move faster as he got unsteadily to his feet.

Suddenly the youngest male Elder turned around to see what he was looking at and saw Wyatt. Wyatt sent a quick high voltage energy ball at him.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

The Elder orbed out of the way of the energy ball and it went through the cloud of orbs. Wyatt watched with wide eyes as the energy ball hit Chris in the chest. He was blasted backwards off his feet and Wyatt shouted his name as he fell downwards, towards the traffic below them.

Chris felt the burning in his chest dull slightly as the fierce wind battered him as he fell. He didn't scream or shout as he watched the cars getting closer and closer. All he kept thinking was at least he got to meet his family, at least he got to meet his family, at least he got to meet his family. And they were lovely. Just like he'd imagined….

But then he thought how he'd never see them again, at least not until they died, and suddenly he wasn't so calm about falling. He screwed his eyes shut as the fear filled him of the thought of being splattered over a road. He felt tears prickle his eyes as he realised his life was about to end before he'd even got the chance to live it properly. And he waited for that second of pain before his death. Waited and kept waiting.

But it never came.

In fact, Chris couldn't feel the wind anymore or hear it whistling in his ears. He just felt dizzy and there was a bright blue light in front of his closed eyelids. Suddenly the light was gone and instead of hitting a road filled with cars, he fell not particularly softly on to grass. He lay there in shock for a moment, just breathing in the smell of the grass and feeling the dampness of it seep through his clothes. He opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

He was in a park. Not the sandbox and monkey bars kind, the kind which had lots of trees and benches and picnic tables. It was vaguely familiar and he could hear the faint noise of traffic nearby. He looked around and then he spotted it. The Golden Bridge was in plain site and he realised where he was. He was in the Golden Gate Park.

Had he just orbed? He must have. The blue light and dizziness was familiar. He liked the freezing power but the fact that orbing had just saved his life made him appreciate it a great deal more.

He grimaced as the burning pain from the wound on his chest got steadily worse again. He didn't hold it against Wyatt for the energy ball hitting him. It had been aimed at that Elder after all.

Suddenly there was a cloud of orbs beside him and he struggled hurriedly to his feet, fearing that it was an Elder.

But it wasn't. It was Wyatt.

"Oh thank god your okay!" Wyatt gasped in relief, pulling him into a hug. Chris stiffened and winced as pain from the wound shot through him.

Wyatt noticed him wince and he pulled away from the hug.

"Here let me heal you."

But before Wyatt could even begin to heal him the Elders orbed in. He stepped in front of Chris protectively.

"Leave him alone." he said to them in a dangerous tone added to the 'don't mess with me' look.

"I'm afraid we can't do that." said the older male.

The female and younger male Elder sent two lightening bolts at them and Wyatt quickly wrapped one arm around Chris's waist and pulled him down to the ground. The lightening blots whizzed over their heads.

"Stay down." he whispered to Chris and he nodded.

Wyatt stood up and focusing all his energy, he sent an energy blast from his outstretched hands towards the Elders. The Elders eyes' widened in shock and they tried to orb out. The energy blast hit the orbs and they scattered and disappeared. He stood still for a moment, just gazing at where they had just been. He looked like he was checking for them coming back. After the moment passed, he turned around and went to go over to Chris.

Suddenly there was a swirl of orbs behind him.

"Wyatt!" Chris shouted but it was too late. The older Elder appeared with an athame in one hand, and without hesitation he plunged it into Wyatt's back.

Wyatt gasped in pain and his eyes glazed over. Chris could do nothing but watch as he fell forwards and landed with a soft thump beside him on the grass.

"Wyatt?" He said quietly crawling over, horror etched on his face. He could feel him. He didn't know how but he could feel him dying.

"Wyatt please wake up." he whispered, shaking Wyatt's shoulder as tears prickled his eyes.

He felt a dull pain in his heart as he felt Wyatt's own start to slow down. This couldn't be happening. He'd only found his family not even a day before and already one of them was dying on him. And the one he was the most close to out of all of them. He may not have known him long but he felt connected to Wyatt somehow. And now he could feel him slipping away.

"Don't die, please don't die!" Chris said louder, shaking him harder as if he was trying to wake him up from a deep sleep. The tears escaped his eyes and made their way down his face as he realised there was nothing he could do. He had no clue how to heal.

He noticed the other Elders orb in and he looked up at the three of them. He realised something as he looked at them just staring at him.

"Please heal him." he whispered to them. "Please."

They shook their heads.

"We're sorry but no." said the female Elder.

Chris looked down. He could feel anger starting to grow inside of him as he felt Wyatt getting closer and closer to dying.

"It was me you wanted, not him!" Chris said, snapping his head back up to look at them.

"It doesn't matter anymore. One of you is dead now so we don't need to worry anymore." said the young male Elder.

Chris didn't say anything but his anger started to grow at a furious pace. He could feel it filling him, bubbling under the surface. How could they just let Wyatt die? Didn't they care that he'd done nothing wrong?

Suddenly as his anger grew, the ground started to shake. Chris was so wrapped up in his anger though that he didn't notice it. The Elders did though. They cast worrying glances at each other as the shaking began to get more violent. Cracks appeared along the ground right underneath the Elders and flashes of lightening appeared in the sky followed by loud rumbles of thunder. The Elders stumbled, trying to keep their balance. Chris still seemed unfazed by it.

Suddenly as he reached breaking point, the ground split open. The female Elder screamed as she fell down through it and was engulfed by the fierce heat and flames inside the earth. The other Elders tried to avoid it but wherever they stepped more cracks opened and they also screamed as they fell and burned.

Chris was suddenly snapped out of his anger induced trance. As he did so the ground reformed together and the lightening and thunder disappeared like nothing had happened. But he hadn't been in too much of a trance to realise what he'd done.

He'd just killed.

Back at the Manor…

The battle between the Elders, the sisters and Leo suddenly stopped as the Elders ceased fire. The sisters and Leo stopped too, out of breath.

"Three Elders are dead." the oldest out of the group announced. "We can sense it."

The sisters or Leo didn't say anything. They didn't care if three Elders were dead really but they knew what it meant. Either Wyatt or Chris killed them. Or they did it together.

"I told you we couldn't have Wyatt and Chris together. Otherwise things like this happen." said Orion.

"Those Elders were trying to kill them!" Piper exclaimed.

"This isn't the end." said the old Elder ignoring her. "We'll get him one way or another."

And with that they all orbed out. The sisters and Leo were left breathing deeply, surrounded by plaster and broken furniture. Cries of "Mommy!" could be heard coming from upstairs and Phoebe and Paige quickly excused themselves to go see to their daughters.

"Are you okay?" Leo asked Piper gently.

"No." said Piper, staring at all damage.

"It'll be okay Piper." said Leo.

"I hope so."

There was a moments silence then Piper looked at Leo.

"Can you sense the boys?" she asked.

Leo closed his eyes for a moment but when he opened them again he frowned.

"Yea, but Wyatt's hurt." he said.

"What?" said Piper, panic stricken. "Well hurry! Go!"

Leo nodded and orbed out.

He reappeared in the Golden Gate Park and it took him a moment to spot his two sons. When he did he ran over, his heart in his throat as he saw blood seeping from a wound on Wyatt's back.

"Chris what happened?" he asked frantically as he fell to his knees beside him and held his hands over the wound.

"An Elder stabbed him." Chris said quietly. He looked slightly out of out but Leo focused on healing Wyatt first of all.

The golden glow appeared and soon the blood and wound disappeared. Wyatt remained unconscious but Leo knew he'd be okay.

"He's gonna be fine." he said to Chris to try and reassure him.

"Good." said Chris absently.

Leo noticed the burn on Chris's chest.

"Here let me heal that for you." he said and he placed his hands over the burn.

The golden glow appeared again and the burn disappeared.

"Thanks." Chris said quietly.

There was a couple of minutes silence.

"Chris," Leo began after a moment. "Where are the three Elders?"

Chris didn't say anything. He instead stared at a spot on the grass.

"Chris?" Leo pressed.

"I…" Chris began. "I…killed them."

His voice was barely a whisper but it seemed to echo in Leo's ears. It wasn't the fact that three Elders had been killed by Chris, it was the fact that had obviously been a mistake and now just by looking at his son, it seemed to have traumatised him.

Leo didn't say anything and waited for Chris to elaborate.

"I didn't mean to do it. I got really mad cause they wouldn't heal Wyatt and it just happened." Chris whispered.

"Well your powers are tied to your emotions." said Leo and then scolded himself. He could have came up with something more comforting than that.

"I can't believe I killed three people." Chris said after another moment and he started to cry.

"Hey," said Leo putting his arm around him and pulling him to him. "Hey, hey it's okay. They were trying to hurt you. They hurt Wyatt. You did nothing wrong."

"But since I killed them doesn't that make me evil?" Chris asked through his tears.

"No." said Leo shaking his head. "Chris you are not evil ok? You're good and what you did was an accident. You didn't mean for it to happen did you?"

"No." said Chris through a choked sob.

"And look how upset you are about it now. Even though they tried to hurt you, you're still upset that you killed them. That shows that you're good through and through." Leo said.

Chris started to clam down about and Leo wiped away some of his tears.

"It does?" he asked, lifting his emerald eyes to Leo's jade ones.

"Yea." Leo said with a reassuring smile.

Chris looked down again and another small silence passed. "I was really scared when they were chasing us."

Leo gave him a small squeeze. "We're not gonna let them get you buddy."

"Really?" Chris asked looking up at him.

Leo nodded. "Yes. I promise we'll protect you."

As they orbed back home, Chris just hoped his dad would be able to keep that promise.

* * *

/N So was that enough action for one chapter? More importantly did you like it? Well review and tell me :-P 


	8. Practise Makes Perfect

A/N: Oh...my...god...Over a YEAR!!! I cannot believe it's taken me that long to update this! I'm SO sorry! In all honesty, I've been very busy and- Well, actually I've been downright neglectful. After getting a second account, I've found I'm forgetting about the stories on this one, and I know, it's very bad! -scolds self- Please forgive me! I actually had severe writers block (actually it was like a huge thick wall, made out of layers of brick and cement!) with this, but I think I've finally got past it. I've written out a chapter plan for the next five chapters, so I think that having an outline will help me a LOT!

All I can say is that I'm so grateful to everyone that's reviewed this, and stuck by it! It really means a lot, so **THANK YOU**!! -hugs!- Believe it or not, every review pushed me that tiny bit more to updating and I finally did! That's gotta be something right?... Well anyway, again, I'm sorry, and I'll try my best to update regularly from now on!

You may need to go back to refresh your memory of what's going on, but here it is! The next installment! Woohoo!

* * *

"Oh thank god!" 

Piper embraced her youngest son tightly, tears shining in her eyes. He hugged her back, breathing in the smell of her perfume as her hair tickled his face. Piper sniffed and held him at arms length.

"Let me look at you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

Chris shook his head, his brown hair falling into his eyes. He didn't want to worry her anymore. He was still in slight shock.

They turned as they heard someone mumble incoherently. Piper gasped when she saw Wyatt lying on the floor with Leo knelt beside him.

"Oh my god, is he okay!? she exclaimed worriedly as she remembered that Leo had sensed he was hurt.

"Don't worry he's fine. I healed him." said Leo as Piper hurriedly walked over to her oldest son.

Chris stood in the background, silently watching as Piper stroked the hair off of Wyatt's forehead. He felt guilty knowing that if it weren't for him then Wyatt wouldn't have gotten hurt. And to be honest, he felt slightly out of place.

"Where are the Elders?" Piper quietly asked Leo, referring to the three Elders that had followed the boys, as she rested Wyatt's head on her lap.

Leo swallowed and Chris was gripped with sudden fear. Was he going to tell her he'd killed the Elders? How would she react if she knew?

He watched his newly found father with frightened eyes and Leo glanced at him.

"Uh they orbed away when I got there." he said.

Chris held in his sigh of relief. Piper just nodded at that then looked back at Wyatt as he started mumbling again. His eyes clenched shut and then slowly they opened.

"Mom?" he said, quite confused as he looked up at her.

"Hey sweetie." said Piper gently. "How are you feeling?"

Wyatt closed his eyes again. "M'ok…the Elders…"

Suddenly his eyes snapped and he sat bolt upright.

"Chris, is he ok?!" he said.

"Whoa calm down. He's fine." said Leo and he nodded his head at Chris.

Wyatt looked and Chris and Chris saw the relief wash over him as he visibly relaxed.

"What happened to you?" Piper asked, turning his attention to her.

Wyatt's brow furrowed in thought. "I…don't remember."

"An Elder stabbed him from behind." Chris cut in.

Anger flashed in Piper's eyes but she pressed her lips together, holding it in, as she and Leo helped Wyatt to his feet.

As this was happening Chris let his eyes scan the surroundings. There were scorch marks all over the walls. Or what was left of the walls. The floors were white with plaster dust and broken furniture littered the place. Some of the photographs that had been hanging on the walls were now lying scorched, with the glass shattered and the wooden frames splintered.

Piper noticed him looking around.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Paige can come up with a little spell to clean this mess up."

"She can?"

Piper smiled slightly as she nodded her head. "Yeah we normally turn to her when we need a little magical help with cleaning the house after demon fights."

Chris swallowed and fiddled with his hands.

"I…I'm sorry about all this." he said nervously.

"Don't be ridiculous." said Piper.

She walked over to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"I'm just glad your alright." she said and she pulled him into a hug again.

Leo sighed in the background and Piper and Chris broke away to look at him. He was deep in thought, staring at the floor.

"Leo," Piper began, concern evident in her voice. "Are you okay?"

Leo swallowed and looked at his wife, forcing a reassuring smile on to his face.

"Yeah." he said. "Yeah I'm fine."

His eyes drifted to Chris as Piper moved to fuss over Wyatt some more. Chris avoided his gaze and bit his bottom lip. Leo's look wasn't accusing but Chris still couldn't stand to look at him. What he'd done was still clawing him on the inside despite what Leo had said to make him feel better.

"Maybe you two should get back up to bed." Piper said with a hand on Wyatt's shoulder.

"I think we all should." said Leo. "It's been a long night."

Piper nodded in agreement and gestured with her hand for Chris and Wyatt to go up. She took Leo's hand and the climbed the stairs after them.

* * *

The ground beneath the demon's black boots crunched as he walked, and his shadow was projected on to the wall from the flaming torches sitting in their brackets on the rock walls. He reached an opening to a cavern, where two other demons were standing guard. He stopped in front of him and crossed his arms across his chest, staring into their eyes. After a few moments, they stepped aside and let him pass. 

Once inside, the demon approached a large figure sitting on a big throne like chair at the far end of the cavern. There was a wall of fire raging behind him, but he didn't seem fazed by the extreme heat. Once within a few feet of reach, the demon got down on one knee and bowed his head. The figure slowly tapped his long white fingers on one arm of the chair, and watched the demon from underneath the hood of his large black cloak.

"I have news my lord." the demon stated, not daring to make eye contact.

No-one EVER made eye contact with the Source of all Evil.

The Source said nothing, and the demon hurriedly elaborated before he lost patience and killed him.

"The Twice Blessed child's brother-

"Is alive." the Source finished in that bone chilling voice. "I know this already. What is your point?"

"T-That's not why I'm here, my lord." the demon stuttered. "It's about the Elders."

"What about them?" the Source snarled as if they were something disgusting he wanted to step on.

"It was them that kidnapped him as an infant." the demon explained. "Then tonight they tried to kill him, and mortally wounded his brother. He killed three of the Elders, my lord."

The Source's fingers froze in mid tap, and he laid his hand flat on the armrest before leaning forward slightly. The demon started trembling slightly under his intense gaze.

"Christopher killed three Elders?"

"Y-yes my lord."

The Source leant back in his chair again, thinking about this new piece of information. And even though the demon couldn't see, he smiled slightly. This was good...very good...

"Leave me." he demanded, and the demon immediately scurried out of the cavern.

Once out of the way, one of the guards entered and knelt in front of The Source.

"Summon Vicus," the Source demanded. "I wish to speak with him..."

* * *

"You're going to school." Piper said firmly. 

"But mom!" Wyatt whined as she stood making breakfast. "We want to help!"

"There's nothing you can do." Leo chipped in, looking over the top of his newspaper.

"Like hell there isn't!" Wyatt argued.

"Wyatt, watch your language!" Piper scolded. She shovelled scrambled eggs on to Chris's plate and he gave her a thanks before starting to eat his large breakfast.

"Seriously Wyatt, the best place for you and Chris is at school. The Elders would never think of attacking Chris there." Leo reasoned as he got up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

"But-

"No buts Wyatt." Piper cut in. "You're going to school and that's that."

"Fine." Wyatt grumbled. He sat down beside his brother and placed his elbows on the table with his chin in his hands.

"But if we get attacked..." he started again, but his mom put her hand up to silence him.

"You won't! Now shush and eat your breakfast!"she ordered, placing his plate in front of him.

Wyatt pulled a face at her back when she turned around to put the frying pan in the sink and Chris smiled slightly.

"And don't pull faces at me either young man." she said without turning around.

"I wasn't!" Wyatt protested, feigning innocence. However Piper knew him all to well and just raised one eyebrow at him as she sat down.

* * *

The day wasn't going so well. Chris had arrived late for his first class (on purpose. It was math. Did he need a reason?), had been sent out the class for not paying attention _again_ and not bringing his math textbook (which was so not his fault considering all his school stuff was back at Rob's house, and no way was he going back there) and then had gotten a detention for "breach of the peace" when he got into a heated argument with Marcus. 

Needless to say, by the time he was halfway through the day, Chris was wishing he was at home. He was itching to just leave, but he didn't want to get in anymore trouble. Well actually, the real reason he didn't go was because his parents had specifically told him to "Stay with Wyatt" outside of school in case of any more attempts from the Elders to kill him.

Having the threat of death over his head was pretty unnerving. The thought of being fried with bolts of electricity made him shiver, which was also why he was very keen to master his powers. The thought of all that magic at his finger tips was exhilarating but at the same time he was almost scared to use it, mostly because he didn't know how yet. The last couple of times had been flukes, brought on by fear or anger mostly, and he didn't yet know how to tap into those powers at will.

"Don't worry, your mother and I will teach you." Leo had told him, but Chris couldn't help but feel slightly impatient. When exactly? What if he killed someone else before they decided to?

Chris sighed and fixed his backpack more securely on his shoulders as he walked. He looked at the other teenagers around him, feeling more out of place than ever. He was a witch now, and they were just...teenagers. Which is all he thought he was until recently. Now he actually had a title; Chris HALLIWELL (not Brown anymore), witch/whitelighter, son of a Charmed One and part of the most powerful line of witches. It was a strange thought.

"Hey, Brown!"

Chris closed his eyes in exasperation and reluctantly turned around. Daniel Clarkson, a friend of Marcus's, was making his way towards him and the other teenagers made a circle around them, excited at the prospect of a fight.

"What do you want?" Chris asked, sounding bored.

"Because of you, Marcus is gonna miss football practise because he has to do a stupid, fucking detention!" Daniel said angrily.

"Big whoop." Chris replied. He turned around to leave but Daniel grabbed his arm and spun him around roughly. Chris placed a fiery glare on him.

"It's the big game on Saturday and this practise is important!"

"It's not my problem!" Chris snapped, wrenching his arm out of Daniel's grip.

Daniel's face contorted in anger and he immediately swung a punch at Chris's face. Chris ducked and Daniel's fist went flying above his head, just as Chris went to send a punch back at him. But at that moment something strange happened. Chris felt warmth spread through him, running down his arm, and the moment his fist connected with Daniel he went flying backwards by at least four feet. Some of the teenagers around them scattered so as not to get hit by Daniel as he thudded to the ground, and they gasped, all turning to look at Chris in amazement. Chris himself was surprised, and looked down at his hand wide eyed.

Daniel struggled to his feet and looked at Chris.

"What the hell..?"

"What is going on here?" a teacher cut in after coming out of his classroom, and the crowd quickly dispersed, leaving Chris and Daniel to deal with him.

"Nothing sir." Daniel said quickly. He looked at Chris one last time and walked in the opposite direction after the teacher sighed and waved them away.

Chris let out a deep breath and turned around. He walked right into Wyatt.

He was standing with his arms crossed across his chest and was giving him a strange, almost calculating look. Chris bit his bottom lip, looking sheepish, knowing that Wyatt had watched him use his powers against Daniel. He hadn't meant it. Or at least he thought hadn't...

Wyatt, it seemed, didn't share this view by the looks of things. Chris didn't really know what the big deal was, but the glimmer of accusation in Wyatt's eyes told him that what he'd done was obviously going against some sort of rule.

* * *

"You used your powers against a mortal?" 

"I didn't mean to..." Chris protested weakly.

He was back home now, after a long stressful day at school. However, hoping he could leave that stress there had obviously been too much to ask for because here he was, getting the third degree from his newly acquired parents.

Wyatt hadn't said much about the incident at school. In fact, he'd talked about things that had nothing to do with it on the way home. Then after around half an hour of getting back his parents had called Chris down to the living room to have a chat and he realised that Wyatt must have told on him. He didn't know if he should feel angry about this or if he deserved it.

Piper sighed. "Chris I know it must be difficult for you to adjust to all this, but you have to realise that unless you really have to, you don't use your powers in front or against mortals. It can cause a whole array of problems."

"I didn't do it on purpose."

Leo sat down opposite him, looking sympathetic.

"Chris, your powers are tied to your emotions and until you can control them, you need to try and keep as calm as possible." he said.

"Easier said than done." Chris muttered. They didn't know how hard it was for him at school; he always got into fights.

"We don't want to lecture you, because we know this is all very new," Piper continued. "But showing mortals your powers can be really dangerous. My sister died because we were exposed as witches."

Chris's eyes widened slightly. "She...died...?"

Piper nodded. "And I don't want the same to happen to you, or anyone else in this family for that matter."

Chris lowered his eyes and looked at his hands. He felt guilt twisting in his stomach knowing he could get someone hurt by using his magic in public.

"I'm sorry." he mumbled.

Piper put her hand on top of his and he looked up.

"Honey, we're not mad at you." she said gently. "We know how hard it is to deal with your powers when they're new to you."

"We just don't want for anyone to get hurt." Leo said and Piper nodded.

Chris didn't like the look in Leo's eyes when he said that. It felt like what he'd really meant to say was "_We just don't want for anyone ELSE to get hurt." _

"Okay. I'll try my best." Chris said quietly, looking away from his father.

"That's all we're asking." said Piper, putting her hands on his face and kissing his forehead. "Once we have time we'll start teaching you how to handle your powers. Now go on upstairs and get any homework you have done."

Chris nodded and got up so he could head upstairs. He hardly ever did his homework but he figured he better at least pretend so he could stay in his parents' good books. He climbed the stairs and when he entered Wyatt's bedroom, Wyatt was sitting on his bed texting on his cell phone. He looked up when Chris walked in and looked at him guiltily.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked hesitantly as Chris sat down on his camp bed. Chris didn't need to ask what for, but he actually didn't feel angry at his brother. He was glad he'd been set rules, otherwise who knew what would have happened. Someone might have gotten hurt next time.

"No." he answered truthfully, looking up at Wyatt. "I shouldn't have used my powers on Daniel."

"Well you didn't mean it." Wyatt said, putting down his cell phone. "I know that. The only reason I told mom and dad is because I figured they should explain the "rules" so to speak."

Chris just nodded, picking at a loose thread on his quilt.

"The rules suck." Wyatt admitted. "You don't know how many guys at school I'd love to use my powers on."

"It just happened." Chris said. "I was angry and then I made him go flying. I didn't mean it."

"Well, in risk of sounding like dad, you're powers are tied to your emotions. Each power has a different trigger. Telekinesis is an anger response." Wyatt explained.

Chris nodded and put his attention back to the loose thread. Wyatt moved to the edge of his bed with a creak of the springs and looked at his brother thoughtfully.

"Why don't you try practising your powers?" he suggested.

Chris looked up, his interest sparking. Practise his powers? That sounded like a good idea...

"How?" he asked.

"Well, why don't you start with orbing?" Wyatt suggested. "It's a fear response so until you can control it, you just have to-

"Get scared?" Chris finished and Wyatt nodded. "That shouldn't be too hard."

"Ok, come on then." Wyatt said enthusiastically, standing up. He pulled Chris to his feet. "Ok, maybe we should just start with orbing in the same place."

Chris nodded nervously. He was going to screw his up, he knew it.

"I'll show you first." Wyatt said, and he disappeared in a flurry of orbs. A second later and he reappeared back in the same spot.

"Now you do it." he said. "Try thinking of something that really scares you."

Chris nodded and closed his eyes. He felt slightly stupid but tried hard to listen to Wyatt's instruction. There were a lot of things that scared him, namely the abuse he had suffered over the years, but he found it difficult to feel scared now when he wasn't faced with it.

He opened his eyes with a sigh, and shrugged helplessly.

Wyatt looked at him thoughtfully then nodded. "Okay, let me go get something."

He turned around to leave them room, but just after taking one step he jumped around.

"ARGH!" He screamed and Chris jumped, giving a squeak of fear and disappearing in a cloud of orbs. Wyatt straightened up, feeling pleased with himself as Chris reappeared, looking terrified and breathless.

"What the hell?!"

"Sorry." Wyatt said sheepishly.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Chris snapped, a hand on his chest.

"It worked didn't it?" Wyatt said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I orbed?"

"Yup."

"Oh," Chris thought about this for a moment. "Cool."

Wyatt grinned. "You just need to keep practising," he looked at his watch. "But I actually have to go."

"Where are you going?" Chris asked.

"I'm going to the movies with some friends." Wyatt answered, then he realised how that sounded and looked at his younger brother guiltily. "It's been planned for a while and I kinda forgot about it till today so-

"It's okay." Chris cut in with a smile. "I don't mind being by myself for a while. I'll practise orbing when you're gone."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, go have fun."

"'Kay thanks." Wyatt said, grabbing his wallet. He smiled at his brother. "Be careful."

"I will." Chris said and Wyatt left.

Chris sighed and moved to an empty space of the floor. He needed as much space as possible if he was doing magic by himself.

* * *

Chris had been practising orbing for an hour, but so far he'd only been able to accomplish it twice. He tried remembering the fright Wyatt had given him to do it, but the fear from that had worn off and Chris was getting impatient. He wanted to master his powers as soon as possible, and yet he still couldn't do a simple orb on command. 

Chris closed his eyes again and tried to think scary thoughts. He managed it at first, but soon his mind kept drifting to other things. He was about to open his eyes and admit to defeat when a car back fired outside unexpectedly, and he jumped, feeling the unusual tingling sensation of orbing at the same time. He kept his eyes firmly closed, just about seeing the blue light behind his closed eyelids.

Then his feet found solid ground. He yelped as he fell backwards on to his butt due to a large gust of wind that knocked him off balance, and he started shivering as the bitter cold seemed to seep into his bones.

He looked around fearfully. The Golden Gate Bridge. How the hell had he managed to orb to the Golden Gate bridge?!

He staggered to his feet and wrapped his arms around his shivering body. His legs wobbled in fear, as he gulped, casting a fearful eye down at the traffic below. Last time he'd been here was when they were chased by the Elders, and that time he'd been blasted off the edge.

His breathing becoming quick and shallow, Chris decided to sit down again so he could try on concentrating on orbing home. He'd orbed so far, and he didn't even know how. Maybe if he thought of the manor hard enough, he'd go there.

He closed his eyes and thought hard, clenching his knuckles in concentration. He didn't like it here and as soon as he was away, the better. The wind blew noisily around him and he clenched his teeth.

"Nice view up here, isn't it?"

Chris snapped open his eyes and looked to his left to see the source of the voice. A man was standing there, watching him with his arms crossed across his chest.

"Who are you?" Chris asked hesitantly. He swallowed nervously, panic rising in his chest knowing that if this guy was a demon, he wouldn't be able to protect himself properly.

The guy smiled. "My name's Vicus." he said. He uncrossed his arms and started to walk over to Chris. He stopped when he noticed Chris shifting away from him.

"Don't worry," he began, putting his hands up. "I'm not a demon."

Chris didn't relax his tensed muscles and eyed him suspiciously.

"Then how did you get up here?" he asked.

"I have powers; just like you." Vicus replied. He finished his walk over to the fourteen year old, and sat down beside him.

"You orbed up here?"

"Not exactly." Vicus began slowly. "But it's like it."

"What are you?" Chris asked, studying his face. "A witch?"

Vicus chuckled slightly and shook his head. "No, not a witch. I've been sent here to help you."

Chris frowned slightly. "Help me?"

Vicus nodded. "With your powers. You have powerful gifts Chris; I've been sent to help you use them."

"By who?"

"Let's just say, a higher being." Vicus said vaguely. "Don't worry, not those stupid Elders." he added at Chris's worried expression.

Chris relaxed slightly, and let out a sigh of relief. "You don't like them either?"

"You kidding me? I hate them." Vicus replied with a grin. "Those assholes know nothin'."

Chris gave a slight smile back but said nothing. He'd been about to tell Vicus about his encounter with the Elders, but decided against it. He was a stranger and what he'd done was a serious thing.

"But anyway, back to business." Vicus said lightly. "If you do as I say, I'll be able to teach you how to master your powers as quickly as possible."

"Well, I think my parents are-

Chris began but Vicus shook his head and cut him off.

"Chris, do you really think your parents are going to have time to teach you? You're mom is a Charmed One -she has all those demons to fight- and your dad, well..." Vicus leaned in closer. "He's one of those stupid Elders."

Chris thought about this for a moment, frowning slightly. "But they said they'd help..."

"They will; until they have to run off to do something more important. Whereas as I have been sent here solely to help you, which means I have nothing else that'll get in the way."

Chris eyed him again. "Who did you say sent you again?"

Vicus smiled again. "Persistent aren't you?"

Chris didn't say anything and Vicus shook his head with that same smile on his face.

"I'm not allowed to tell you right now, not until you've mastered your powers. But when you do, you can meet him."

Chris frowned at him, confused, but Vicus didn't say any more about this.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he asked suspiciously, and he grew even more confused when Vicus chuckled, casting a glance at the glittering ocean in the distance.

"Good question." he said, looking back at Chris. "But I'm not asking you to trust me yet, all I'm asking is for you to let me help you. You could do great things with yours powers, if you just knew how to use them properly.

A few moments passed as Chris thought about everything Vicus had told him. He'd been desperate to control his powers after that night with the Elders, but he'd of course been expecting his parents to teach him. Not some guy he didn't know. However...

Chris looked at Vicus, who was looking at the ocean again, and thought hard about his offer.

Maybe...maybe it couldn't hurt to get some extra help, could it? His parents could teach him and so could Vicus. Having someone else to guide him would just mean he would learn faster, which was a good thing all round, wasn't it?

"Well?" Vicus queried.

Chris hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded. "Alright." he said slowly.

Vicus smiled widely and nodded. "Great! Here," he held out his hand and Chris shook it. "Don't worry, you won't regret it."

Chris wasn't sure how to respond, but before he could, Vicus stood up and stretched before looking down at him again.

"I'm sorry I can't stay right now, but I need to go and talk to my boss." he explained. "I'll come see you tomorrow though."

He turned as if to go, but then looked back at Chris.

"Oh and Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell anyone about me 'k?" he said.

Chris frowned slightly. "Why?"

"Because I'm only to help you, and it will make things much easier if we don't have others butting in. Plus, you're the only one that can see me. Wouldn't want them to think you're seeing things, now would you?"

"You're invisible to everyone else?" Chris asked after shaking his head to the last question.

"Yup. I'm only visible to the people I'm helping." Vicus explained and he smiled again. "So you'll keep this a secret?"

Chris nodded and gave a slight smile back to him. "Yeah."

Vicus nodded. "See you later then." And then he was gone, his eyes flashing and lingering slightly after his body disappeared, before they followed suit.

Chris let out a deep breath and turned his head so he was sitting straight. He couldn't help thinking that maybe this could be a very good idea. He could imagine his parents' faces, how pleased they would be, when he showed them how well he'd mastered his powers in such a short space of time...

Chris closed his eyes and started to concentrate again. He really needed to get home; hypothermia was the last thing he needed.

* * *

Pleeeeeeeease review! I may not deserve it after the HUGE wait, but it'll make me very happy. :-) 

Oh! And btw, I know Vicus was vanquished by Phoebe and Paige in season 7, but lets imagine he didn't really die 'k? ;)


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